


The Quiet Ones

by quietgold



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 15:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 105,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4751204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietgold/pseuds/quietgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every choice, every action was a consequence of survival. She couldn't fault Merle for leaving her for dead - he had only wanted more time. Everyone wanted more time. Except the man with the white rose. He wanted only to protect his people. He wanted more time for them, even if he had to run his own clock short. A slow burn romance. Daryl/OFC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_what if this storm ends_

_and leaves us nothing_

_except a memory_

_a distant echo_

 

* * *

 

 

The new world has no time for noise. So, when the sharp crack of a gunshot echoes through the dead city of Atlanta, she stares down the scope of her binoculars and waits. The silence that follows is deafening, as if the city itself hesitates and draws in a long and nervous breath.

 

From atop the rundown apartment complex she's taken refuge on, she's an inconspicuous blur against the brilliant Georgian sky. Another shot cracks across the sky, and she hunkers down closer to the edge of the roof, peering over the eave with wide, disbelieving eyes.

 

She wets her sun dried lips – useless really, as her tongue is like cotton in her mouth – and lets out a single breath. It's like wind to her ears. It grows and grows until it's roaring with the rattling moans of the dead and the pounding of their fists. She can see them throwing their bodies against the dark glass of a department store down the block.

 

“How ya like me now?!” The grizzled voice is hardly more than a whisper on the wind compared to the rifle, but it is enough to draw her eyes. She looks up and watches as a man hangs over the edge of the roof, aiming at the horde clambering below. She can't look away, even as he hollers into the sky and lets loose another shot.

 

It's like thunder in her ears.

 

She rolls over and hides when the man's rifle swings wildly around, her chest tightening as if he can hear her windy breaths. She counts down from ten, and peeks over the edge. He's still there, hanging off the roof and cursing into the sky, but he isn't looking at her or _for_ her.

 

He's watching someone. Someone running through the streets.

 

Another shot fires off. She's up and moving back into the building. She doesn't need more incentive than the group of walkers gathering at the foot of the department store a few blocks down. A crowd that big means one thing: the store under her feet is going to be clear, and that's good enough for her.

 

She just needs to be quiet – quieter than that asshole looking to get himself killed.

 

The convenience store is small. One of those little Mom and Pop shops that sit under an apartment complex and lap up the clientele that live overhead. The front windows are smashed in and the shelves are nearly empty. There is a brown stain behind the counter and a nice streak right out the front window and into the street.

 

She feels the slickness of her sweat down her back, and neck; the heat of summer thick and heavy in the confines of the dilapidated convenience store. And she stands there and waits, knife tap-tap-tapping against the counter.

 

Tap-tap- _tapping._

 

Another gunshot echoes through the streets. _Crack._

 

Her knife-hand stills, and she holds her breath.

 

_One, two, three...._

 

Nothing – only the echoing moans of the dead down the street, and the sudden crack of the rifle. She shakes her head, bewildered by how wildly he's wasting ammo.

 

She tries to ignore the severity of her situation – the fact her feet are on ground zero of Atlanta city. She had foreseen only rooftops and plus-fifteens in her future; it wasn't safe here. Ground-zero was walker territory.

 

_Crack._

 

The idiot on the rooftop was leveling the playing field, but only as long as his ammo held out.

 

_Crack._

 

She moves, grabbing anything and everything that looks edible. A handful of melted chocolate bars, a few packs of noodles, and as many bottles of water and warm soda pop that she can.

 

_Crack._

 

The aisle marked with _Personal Care_ is empty. For a long moment she stands in silence and stares at the shelves that are picked clean. Everything from children's Tylenol to Ex-Lax is long and gone. She takes a hesitant step forward, her disbelief hardly more than a desperate sweep of her eyes and a frustrated sigh.

 

She kneels down, fingers clawing under shelves and fumbling through empty boxes. Her hands are shaking as she hits something – and it rattles. It _rattles._ She wipes her hand over her brow and grabs the box – and it's nothing more than a handful of Glossettes. _Glossettes._ She lets out a sharp breath and whips it across the store.

 

She won't yell.

 

She can't.

 

There is no time for noise in the new world.

 

Instead she grits her teeth and hisses into the silent store. For a long moment she kneels there, staring down at the ground. She tugs at the bandana wrapped around her neck, the knife in her other hand pushing against the floor.

 

The store is quiet, save for the shuffling feet scratching against dusted concrete, or the desperate growls of the walkers as they throw themselves over and over against the unyielding glass of the store down the street. She can hear all of this – but not the sharp crack of the rifle.

 

The rifleman is silent.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a cop who had saved her life, an older man who looked her in the eye and saw a need there.

 

“You remind me of my daughter,” he had said, his hands shaking as he handed her the keys to his cruiser. She had taken them, her eyes lingering on the bloody gash on his forearm.

  
“Remember to be quiet, and not be afraid,” had been his last words to her. He had rested his hand on her head, his eyes seeing someone else standing there. And then she had gone. He hadn't watched her drive away. He had simply started walking back towards the city – whistling a tune that sounded something like laughter and tears.

  
She hadn't cried. He hadn't wanted her sympathy.

 

* * *

 

  
The cruiser saved her life, but only for a while. Inevitably, it led to her downfall. Mankind was a failing race -- humanity had died the moment fear ruled.

 

“Give us the car, and your weapons,” they'd all say, virgin hands trembling with guns. The slick smell of gun-oil mixed in finely with that of blood, and she forgot to look scared when they'd press the mouth of the barrel to her forehead. That smell – that smell was enough to make her breath clutch in her chest, and her lungs to swell in anticipation.

 

“Do it,” she always said. “Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do.” That was enough for them to hesitate, and suddenly her fingers would be curling on their wrists and they'd let loose a single shot.

 

And then they'd scatter.

 

There was no room for noise in the new world – only silence. A single shot meant more than just a loosed bullet, it meant a brilliant and flaring beacon.  
  
_We're right here,_ it said. _Come and get us._

 

Her bluff only lasted for so long, until a group of young men used the butt of their own pistols to send her staggering. They drove away with everything; the cruiser, the handgun, the backpack from _before._ She had barely managed to drag herself into a building before something had sniffed her out, her head bleeding and reeling and flashing with blackness.

 

She had hidden in an abandoned apartment's closet, an old vacuum pipe in one hand.

 

* * *

 

 

After weeks of silence, she had given up. She had firmly and resolutely believed that she was what remained of humanity – until that idiot had started shooting up the town and a gaggle of people had made off with a squealing car that could be heard for miles. After they had fled in their stolen vehicle, she had sat in the convenience store behind the counter and waited.

 

And then she had heard him – she had heard him yelling and cursing and flaring with anger. More beast than man.

 

He eventually went quiet.

 

And then she left.

 

* * *

 

 

She's walking away from Atlanta when she sees it. A cube van sitting crookedly in the middle of the road with its door thrown open. She eyes it warily, having preferred the concrete barrier between her and a graveyard of vehicles and people.

 

She comes up alongside it, her knife tapping against the side even before she gets to the door. She hesitates, breath tight.

 

Nothing.

 

Not a sound.

 

When she looks in and stares; a man is passed out in the driver seat, one hand clutching at the keys and the other... the other doesn't exist.

 

It's been erased.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

She has been standing there for hardly a moment when the man lets out a gurgled moan. She sets back, eyes wide as she takes in the sweaty sheen on his graying skin. Her knife is in her hand, loosed from its hilt with a steady flick of the wrist. For a long moment she waits, breath held as she listens to the rattling sound of his chest, to the pained whimpers leaking from his lips.

 

_One, two, three –_

 

But the man doesn't turn. He doesn't sit up and reach for her with a hungry growl. He simply remains slumped, arm wrapped in a bloody shirt – she eyes it for a moment before she realizes that it isn't campfire she smells on him, but the smell of burnt flesh.

 

She blinks and reaches forward to check his pulse. The weak flutter under her finger tips makes her wince. He needs help – _now._

 

The cube van is a company vehicle, and a quick once over in the cab yields a meager first aid kit. She clutches it fervently, taking in the few items with a reverence. It would be so easy to walk away from him – he was pretty much dead already, and the first aid kit could be salvaged and coveted. Why waste what she had on a man that had little hope of surviving? It's ruthless, unthinkable, but such are the times they live in.

 

The ruthless calculus of war.

 

The first aid kit is heavy in her hands.

 

“Damn it.”

 

She places both it and her knife down.

 

She moves closer and reaches out, fingers pinching at the fabric and pulling it away. She's always been good at compartmentalizing – damn good, in fact –, but she still feels a weakness creep along the backs of her thighs and spine at the sight of it.

 

“I won't beg, ya hear me...”The voice has her frozen. He moans, eyes fluttering. He is delirious and disoriented and seeing with eyes that don't truly see. She turns to meet his gaze, her lips tight and hand inching towards her knife. “Hey, hey darlin'. No time for tha' until ol' Merle's all sunshine 'gain – hm. I can't be --- I can't be bumpin' wit' you when I ain't got both hands--”

 

And suddenly he's gone, eyes rolling back and chin dropping.

 

For a long and drawn out moment she sits there in silence deciding what to do. The thought of leaving him behind is no brief and fleeting debate; it sits heavily in her mind, more tempting than the thought of helping him.

 

She glances back down the highway. Atlanta looms in the distance. She can practically taste the walkers on the air.

 

She shoves into the cab and pushes the unconscious man – Merle, she reminds herself – out of the way. He hits the passenger door hard, and she hardly cares – maybe once upon a time, but not now. Sliding the keys from his hand and into the ignition brings the van to life, and then she's shifting into drive and rolling away. She doesn't look back. 

* * *

  
  
They had stopped on an old back-country road – something ugly and bumpy and untouched in recent years. It wound its way off the I-85, and fell away into the forested hills there. She had driven slowly up that first night, parking the van at the top of a hill that looked out towards the distant haze of Atlanta. From there the city had looked somewhat normal, nothing alike the mass graveyard it had become.

* * *

 

The light from a key-chain flashlight and the failing day is all she has to work by. The stuffy box of the van is the only place she can work in. The door is thrown open, and the last light of the evening filters in and spreads across Merle's body. She tries not to focus on the fact that a walker could come ambling up and clamber right into the box with them. She reasons that she'll close it when all is said and done.

 

She's peeling back the first layer of cloth when she realizes that he could very well die. Well – die _faster._ She had known from the moment she saw him slumped in the front seat that every breath he took could very well be his last, but _this_ was different _._ The stump was fresh, and she knew when she had last seen him hollering like a maniac off of the edge of that high-rise that he had had both hands. Something had happened to his hand that had necessitated _removing_ it.

 

She wonders briefly if he had been bitten. At that thought her fingers tighten on the knife again.

 

The man stirs, and then takes a long and deep breath.

 

She grits her teeth and gets to work.

 

The amputation itself had been dealt with, instead she's left reeling over the third degree burns that stare back at her blandly. The raw, twisted meat of his arm leaves her wondering if it wouldn't be better to just stick a knife through his temple now and be done with it. She can't even imagine how painful it's going to be when he wakes, or what they'll do if infection sets in.

 

She reaches into her pack and produces several wet wipes. She can't help but think that KFC never intended for their product to be used _this way.  
_

She cleans off the dirt and gore, mindful of the red and angry blisters that run along his twisting skin. The wet wipes are nothing more than water and soap, and so she has no qualms prodding them into any red and angry pore that weeps. The man twitches once or twice, but remains unconscious.

 

By the time she is finished, the wipe is black, and she still pours half a bottle of water over the mangled stump to make sure it's as clean as possible. The man's forehead is dotted with sweat, and his shirt darkens with it. She tips the last half of the water bottle into his mouth, watching as every last drop drains away.

 

* * *

  
  


When he comes to it is with a start. It isn't pretty. More yelling and anger than anything else. She thinks of a wounded animal, desperate and ready to fight for its life. Except this man isn't a dog caught in a corner; he's large and dangerous and his eyes are wild with fever.

 

“You're wounded,” she's nothing more than a silhouette – the morning sun bright behind her.

 

“Where'm I?”

 

“Outside Atlanta.”

 

“Back at camp?”   
  
She blinks at him, realization settling upon her – his voice is rough and slurred, but she can hear the delirium there. “Yeah,” she says, hoping the defensive fire in his eyes dies as promptly as it had been ignited. Sure enough, he relaxes.

 

“Where's my baby brother at?” His words are growing softer, like he's slowly succumbing to something heavy and encompassing. His eyes are fluttering, his head is lolling.

 

“He's right here,” she lies as she climbs into the box of the van to kneel beside him. Her fingers find his shoulders and she is pushing him back, back into the corner where he can rest his head. “Just sleep.”

 

He doesn't close his eyes and welcome sleep as much as he succumbs to unconsciousness. The moment his head touches down on a folded jacket, his eyes reel and he passes out. She sits there for a long moment, watching him, wondering if his baby brother is dead or a walker or somewhere out there in the wide world looking for him.

 

She lets out a long breath and turns back to the sunny day looming outside.

 

* * *

  
  


The day falls away. No walkers come up the hill. She sits in silence and waits, knife in hand and keys in the ignition of the van. She's ready to run if something happens. The words of the cop are like a prayer in her mind. _Remember to be quiet, and don't be afraid._

 

The man – Merle – is still, although he occasionally murmurs obscenities. She changes his dressing only once, keeping the burn dry and protected. There isn't a lot she can do for him, except tip water into his mouth and push her few remaining capsules of Tylenol past his lips. He could live or he could die.

 

She sits in silence and waits.

 

When the sun goes down she hears gunfire in the distance; it lights up the hills like thunder and lightning.

 

* * *

 

 

“You did this?” His voice is shocking – like a sudden explosion, or a thunderclap from a blue sky. She turns quickly and finds him staring at her, leaning on his good elbow while cradling the stump against his chest.   
  


“You're dehydrated and need rest,” she hands him a bottle of water and the last – the _very_ last – travel pack of Tylenol.   
  
He takes both, ripping open the small pack and tipping the pills into his mouth. He washes it down with a chug of water, all the while never letting his eyes leave her. “You wrap me up?” He wiggles his ghost of an arm at her.  
  


She nods, not really knowing what to say. The last time they had spoken he had been little more than dead – and even though he is still weak, she finds the clarity of his gaze to be somewhat disconcerting. There is a fire there, more anger and prejudice and danger than anything remotely human.

 

He doesn't like being weak; he doesn't like being helpless and dependent – especially to a woman. She can see the contempt in his eyes, and she can tell he isn't the kind of guy to sit idly by under her authority. She can envision it already – betrayal. Him taking her out in the night and making off with her supplies. He wouldn't even blink.

 

“Wha's your name, girl?” When she doesn't answer right away he smirks, lazy and sure. “Huh? You got a name, don'cha?” _  
_

It's a game. The kind of one a predator might play with its newest meal. She knows because it's something she's done – something she did, once in another life.

 

He's sitting there staring at her, waiting for her to say something.

_  
_It's funny, thinking about her name – it echoes of a world where names were important. It reminds her of first grade, when she stood in front of a class of wide eyed kids and told them how she wanted to be a nurse. It reminds her of a time, in a place that was dark and sweet and hot, when a man was sliding against her whispering her name over and over. And of a time when a flag, folded and beautiful and horrible was placed in her hands with whispered apologies. It reminds her of a time when she felt real and human and alive – not like some animal scrounging in the dirt of a dead world.

 

From the way he's looking at her she knows it's a mistake. There is something about the man that is dangerous – something manipulative and caustic. But, he's also a person. A human. One of the first she's seen in the past few weeks who hadn't held a pistol to her head right off the get-go. She doesn't know why, but she feels a craving deep in her bones. Like an addict, she just wants her next hit – a reprieve from the pain.

 

She just wants something more than silence and quiet and _nothing._  
  
She just wants a goddamn conversation.

 

Everything is screaming at her not to say anything, not to give him anything. But she's so caught up in that echo – that echo of a world where names were important – that she ignores her better judgment, all for a moment to feel like the world isn't going to hell.

  
“Cal,” she says. “You can call me Cal.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“What kind of name is Cal? You a dyke?”

 

“What kind of name is Merle? You a dog?”

 

He eyes her suspiciously, that crude jaw of his jutting out. Even though it's been a few days since she's dragged him out of Atlanta, there is still a suggestion of fever behind his eyes. From what she can tell thus far, his beaming wit isn't in the least bit affected.

  
“How you know my name?”

 

“You talk in your sleep.”  
  


This seems to appease him, if only for a moment. His eyes narrow again when he glances out the door of the van. “Where'm I?”

 

“Outside Atlanta,” she says.

 

“Where you find me?” He asks, the confidence in his voice belies his thinly veiled uncertainty.

 

“On the road, passed out, missing a hand.”

 

He ignores her pointed look at his wrapped stump.“You got a group?”

 

She doesn't even think about it. The lie is out of her mouth before he has reason to doubt her, “yes.”

 

“They here?”

 

“They're around,” she offers.

 

“Where they at?”

 

“They're waiting,” she lies easily, the words rolling off her tongue like there is an actual group out there waiting for her. She almost laughs – the last _group_ she had had ended with a cop whistling a tune sadder than the end of the world and a cruiser car that had promptly been stolen from her.

 

“See if I'm good people and the like?”

 

She shrugs, “something like that.”

 

“Not big on words, huh?”

 

She doesn't answer.

 

He considers her for a long moment, jaw working as he mulls over her apparent nonchalance and clipped answers. “I ain't goin' with you,” he says, his words slurring together. “I got my own family to look out for.”

 

She doesn't say anything to this, simply bites at her thumb nail and stares. Merle stares back, brow heavy over his eyes.

 

* * *

 

She doesn't trust Merle. Even missing one arm and still weak from both injury and exposure, she knows not to turn her back on him. Despite her own exhaustion, there was no way in hell that she was going to just hunker down next to him and see if she still had a heartbeat by morning.

 

By the time Merle is muttering away in his sleep the sun is low in the sky. The Georgian summer heat has hardly died – only just enough to offer the barest reprieve -- making Cal all too aware of just how tired she is. She slips from the back of the cube van, sliding the door shut behind her, and proceeds to slip the keys from the ignition and into her pocket. For a long moment afterward she stands and looks out across the hills. The world is cast in a golden light, it almost looks like a dream.

 

She wanders into the trees, one hand sitting warily on the hilt of her hunting knife strapped to her thigh, and the other pushing back branches or sweeping across the ground to push aside a wayward twig. The forest is silent as she passes through – the trees hardly whispering as she moves beneath their boughs. The quiet that lingers in the golden wood reminds her of a time when sleep wasn't a fantasy, but something real and certain; when warm beds were a reality, and nights were filled with dreams.

 

It isn't long until a particular tree catches her eye, and with a long breath she begins to climb. The branches are thick, and she lets loose a grateful sigh when one in particular looks more inviting than the rest. She settles in, back against the trunk and legs spread out before her. She stares out across the fallen Atlanta, one hand resting on her stomach, and the other drum-drum-drumming against her knife.   
  
For a while she thinks about Merle, and of the family he spoke of.

 

And then eventually, she sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 

The door slides open, cracking sharply against the top of the van. Merle jerks awake, letting loose a string of obscenities that would have had a prostitute blushing. Cal is a dark silhouette against the light of day. He blinks wearily at the sunlight, trying to block it with a hand.

 

“What the hell you think you're doin', huh? Tryin' to scare me to death?” Cal regards him coolly – he noticed that about her, she didn't really show a lot on that haggard face of her's – before stepping up into the box of the van.

 

“Here,” she's leaning over him, dragging his arm away from his chest and peeling back the layers of fabric before he has a chance to react. He tries not to flinch when the fabric catches on a piece of raw skin, but he can feel her fingers tighten on his forearm in warning.

 

“Don't look too bad, doc,” he says. He glances up at her, unsure. “Does it?”

 

“It'd look worse if you hadn't cauterized it.”

 

Merle grins at her, sure and pleased with himself, “so, that makes me some sort'a clever, huh?”

 

She glances at him and turns away to the pack sitting in the corner. It's a few minutes before she returns, a KFC wet-wipe in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He feels a panic spike low in his gut as she moves towards him.

 

“Wha'cha think your doin', huh?” He's eying the wet-wipe warily. She cracks the package open and pulls out the damp towelette.

 

“I'm cleaning your arm.”

 

“The hell you're not.” He pushes back into the corner. Cal stops moving forward when she is suddenly reminded of animal, wild and caged and angry. “You come near me wit that and I ain't promisin' I ain't gonna knock you 'round the head.”

 

There is silence between them. She stares down at him, he glares back at her. The stubborn set of his jaw is unyielding, and the bunched muscles in his shoulders and neck tells her exactly what she should do – nothing. She stoops down next to him and without looking away she places the bottle down with a thud, the wet-wipe folded neatly on top.

 

“Fine,” she says evenly, the frustration she's feeling at his noncooperation bubbling just barely out of sight. “If you're feeling like an infection might be a good time, by all means _don't_ clean it. Let it fester.” She sits down in the van opposite him, her eyes stretching out across the yellowed horizon. Merle is silent behind her, and she almost smirks at the thought; the damn bastard had been loud and obnoxious in every waking moment thus far, it was a nice change to hear him succumb to the quiet.

 

Cal reaches out and pulls her backpack from the cab and onto her lap, grimacing as she finds the contents somewhat less than desirable. A few melted chocolate bars squish within their wrappers. She glances up at Merle, grimacing slightly when she finds him eying her pack with hungry eyes. She tucks it away, effectively placing herself between him and what little food remains.

 

“How'd it happen?” She asks, attempting to divert his attention.

 

“A lawman and his pet nigger 'cuffed me to a roof – left me to rot. Bunch of walkers snappin' at my ass... I did what I had to.” There is an anger in his voice, and she is surprised to find she understands it. The biggest inhumanity that could be dealt these days was a slow death. She still remembers that punch of fear she had felt, reeling and disoriented after having been pistol whipped and left for dead. It had been unlike anything she had ever felt; helpless terror in the face of certain death. They had simply left her there – they hadn't even wasted a bullet.

 

And that was the problem.

 

“Did you know them?” She asks. Merle nods. “Anyone family with them?”

 

“Little brother. I'd reckon he ain't no longer. Kid's smart, he'd put two n' two together.”

 

There was a pause, and then, “you're going to go looking for him?”

 

Merle looked at her darkly, as if she even had to ask, and chuckled. “Knowin' him, he'll be the one to find me. But yeah – I'mma go right back to where those sorry assholes be shackin' up, and I'mma show em what leavin' ol' Merle behind means.”

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually Merle crawls his way out if the cube van, and he sways uncertainly on the hill-top overlooking the vast spread of forest below. He leans on the door heavily, using it as a crutch. He stands there for a good while looking out across the woods with his defiant, grim stare.

 

“There,” he says, pointing across the woods towards a jagged scar in the side of a mountain. “That Quarry – we was makin' camp there.”

 

Cal stands beside him, and stares. She remembers the dark of night and the quiet, and the sudden crack and flash of gunfire. Merle had been unconscious then, but she had sat into the night and stared across the valley well after the gunfire had ceased and wondered who had lived, and who had died. She had felt that sliver of apathy that shadowed her in this new world – she hadn't cared. Not really. All that mattered was that it wasn't _her_ fighting for her life in the dark, lighting the night with the bravest, brightest beacon. _Someone else is dying,_ she had thought, _so that you may sit here and live._

 

She doesn't say anything to Merle about the gunfire. “You're going back?”   
  
He nods, “first thing in the mornin'.”

 

* * *

 

 

She goes with him to the camp. Not because she's overly concerned about his group, or even him, but because her pack is low and hollow against her back. She can feel the last chocolate bars squishing around, and there isn't much else – the last bottle of water had been the one she'd given Merle for his arm.

 

She needed supplies.

 

As Merle slides into the front of the van she follows, and watches as he fumbles with the keys. “Can't even stick a goddamn piece of shit key into--”

 

“Want me to drive?” Cal's voice is low, almost as if she's afraid he'll bolt if she speaks too loudly. Merle looks at her sharply, his jaw tightening. He is staring at her defiantly, his anger and prejudice roiling in his eyes. He casts a pointed look at her breasts before he glowers at her.

 

“What? You thinkin' I'm some nancy-ass, huh? Jus' 'cause I ain't got both hands --”

 

“I don't want to die if you pass out at the wheel,” she interrupts bluntly. “Which could very well happen considering you've only just begun to have lucid conversations and you're insisting on exerting yourself. Save your energy. Let me drive.”

 

Merle grunts at her, jaw tight and brow furrowed. He steps out of the cab, keys discarded on the driver's seat. For a long moment they stand toe to toe. He pushes past her, shoulder bumping her into the door and continues on to the passenger side. Cal frowns after him, but slides her way into the van and starts the engine.

  
“Don't you have your own group to get back to?”

 

She shrugs, the lie coming out easily, “they don't expect me back for a while.”

 

“They don't sound too smart letting their doctor wander off – that's what you are, huh? Some kind of doctor?” He's looking at her – he always is, she thinks – with that defensive, stubborn expression of his that makes her feel like a sack of meat. Cal shifts the van into drive and rumbles down the gravel road.

 

“Does it matter?” She eventually says. “What I was before all of this?”

 

Merle grunts, “guess not. Jus' be nice knowin' if you're a chef or nurse, ya know. See if you're going to be doin' me up one way or the other. Heh.”

 

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

 

“I don't eat dog,” she says blandly.

 

Merle's laugh is like thunder in her ears.

 

* * *

 

 

The van is just under half a tank of gas by the time they make it to the road leading up to the Quarry. Merle is mumbling nonsense beside her as they begin the long and winding ascent – he curses vehemently every time the van hits a pothole, all the while glaring at her and mumbling to _stop driving like a woman._

 

Cal hits the gas the next time she sees one, causing Merle to hit his head on the roof.

 

“You doin' that on purpose, huh? Or you jus' too dumb to see the big ass holes on the road?”

 

She shrugs, and then hits another one.

 

He turns away with a huff, muttering something along the lines of _bitch_ and _wench._  
  
By the time the Quarry is in sight Merle is quiet. He's staring out the window darkly, eyes narrowed and hand twitching. The pool of water they pass is the first indication that something is wrong – the water is still, untouched. If the group was as large as Merle claimed, surely there would have been people at the water's edge.

 

“Bitches should be cleanin',” he mutters.

 

Cal leans forward in her seat as they begin the ascent into the hills, away from the water.

 

“You think they're still there?”

 

Merle is glaring at her, “ _my brother_ will be there.”

 

Cal doesn't say anything.

 

As they come around a corner, the trees recede to reveal a small glade of trampled grasses and worn patches of dirt. A red mustang sits awkwardly off to one side, effectively crippled by the theft of its tires. Cal wheels the van around so its nose is pointing back down the hill, parks it, and tucks the keys away into her pocket.

 

Merle is out of the van in a second. She slips out after him.

 

She doesn't say anything. She stands back and watches as he moves towards the treeline. It's only as he nears the woods that she suddenly recognizes the slouched, dark shapes of several tents. Even from where she is standing she can tell that they've been torn into – the canvas shredded.

 

And then she catches sight of the burn pile.

 

She blanches as she recognizes the twisted limbs and blackened skulls as human, her mind reeling back to that night where the gunfire had lit up the hills like a thunder and lightning storm. Merle is suddenly beside her, lips pulling back into a snarl. “Sum'bitches got what they deserved.”

 

“And what if your brother is in there?” She doesn't mean for her tone to sound clipped and condescending. “Did he deserve it?”

 

“He ain't dead,” Merle lets out a low laugh. “Tents gone, 'long with the truck and bike. Ain't nobody but him gonna be takin' that bike. Not with the roar it makes. Nah,” he says, waving his hand at the burn pile. “Only people there are assholes that deserve it.” He wanders off, his steps staggered and his direction senseless, but he glances back over his shoulder to the pile of charred bodies, and Cal feels the chill of his uncertainty.   
  


His moment of doubt.

* * *

 

 

 

They scavenge. Or try to. The tents ducking into the treeline are shredded and covered in gore, but there are a few items still inside that Cal pushes eagerly into her back-pack; a tube of toothpaste, a pair of socks, a box of band aids. She grins when she pulls back a bloodied pillow to find a bottle of Tylenol. It rattles loudly, and she shoves one of the found socks into it, effectively silencing it.

 

Eventually she wanders away from the tents, having gathered what she could that was both useful and not covered in gore. She finds Merle leaning against the red mustang, a bottle of _something_ in his hands that looks more like alcohol than anything hydrating.

 

“Want one, sugar lips?” Merle motions to another bottle beside him – beer.

 

She ignores him, turning away to study the remains of the camp. The pile of bodies is still smoldering. Her eyes alight upon a path ascending a brief incline. She moves towards it, leaving Merle slumped against the car. The path isn't narrow, and as she follows it she can see the clear tracks of a vehicle having taken the trip numerous times. When she reaches the top, she knows why.

 

A row of fresh turned earth; a row of improvised markers; a row of new graves.

 

She crouches down beside the loose soil. They had buried some of the dead, and they had burned the rest. “Walkers then,” she muses aloud.

 

“Must of been. These ain't here when we left,” Merle is suddenly beside her, beer bottle in his hand nearly empty. He grimaces as he stares down at the row of graves. “Ain't no reason to go half 'n half. Burn pile _must'a_ been walkers.”

 

They turn and leave, walking back down the hill. Merle staggers unsteadily after her, but she doesn't stop to help him – he'd just turn her down anyway.   
  
“We need to find you some antibiotics,” she's eying the dark circles under his eyes, the sweat on his brow – she knows it's hot out, but it's not so hot that he should be dripping. He only grunts at that and runs a hand across his forehead.

 

It's as they're returning to the camp that she catches sight of the note sitting idly at the foot of the mustang. She moves ahead of Merle to pick it up.

 

“What's that?”

 

She reads the note aloud. “Says their heading to the CDC. This place isn't safe --”

 

“Well no shit.”

 

“--signed, Rick. Who is that?”

 

Merle shrugs, “don't matter none, girl. Give me the keys.”

 

“We've been over this,” Cal says, stepping away from him to shove the corner of the note under the edge of the hood. It catches and stays – whoever it was intended would still find it.“What do you think you're going to do? Go roaring after them into the city?”

 

Merle glares at her, jaw tense. “I'm gonna get my little brother. Give me the keys.”

 

“You know the city is a death trap. Why risk it?”

 

Merle steps closer. “I ain't no baby-bitch --”

 

“You need anti-biotics --”

 

“I need my baby brother... And if you ain't gonna help me, then get the fuck out of my way.”

 

She takes a step back, alarm flashing through her at the intensity of his anger. She grips the hilt of her knife, more to calm her shaking nerves than to draw on him. She notices his eyes fall to her hand, a smirk tugging at his lips.

 

“What're you gonna do with that, huh? Skewer me up a bit after you fixed me up all nice?” He takes a step forward.

 

“Merle --”

 

He stops, jaw tight. Her eyes aren't wild and fearful, but flashing with clear warning.

 

“We're goin' to the CDC. I bet they got some good meds there. Patch me right up. Make me all pretty – put a bow in my hair. Then maybe you and I can--” she watches impassively as his eyes roll back and he slumps to the ground.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He comes to with a start. He doesn't yell or throw a fit, but laughs deliriously against the window. “How'd you get me in 'ere, lil' thing like you?” When there is no response he glances at the driver seat, and blanches – Cal isn't there. He hesitates for a moment, jaw tightening as he looks around wildly. They're parked on the highway, right beside the median.

 

He pushes down the lock and sinks low in his seat.

  
Suddenly the driver door is thrown open – and Cal is there, spitting at the ground and slinking into her seat with a grumble on her lips, a empty water bottle and a coiled hose in the other. She tosses it between the seats and into the box. “Goddamn gasoline tastes like--”

 

“Where the hell you been?” Merle snaps, and Cal hardly casts him a glance. She throws the car into drive and they're rumbling down road. The fuel gauge reads three-quarters full. “Where the hell are we?”

 

“We're heading to the CDC,” she says. “You collapsed a couple hours back. Figured if you're going to die, might as well do it on your terms.”

 

He smirks at her, “ah, girl. You jus' want me all healthy 'n pretty so you can take a ride.”

 

Her jaw tightens, but she says nothing. He laughs.

 

For the rest of the ride neither of them say anything. Merle occasionally grumbles about her driving, but for the most part they succumb to silence. After a while she begins to whistle – it sounds like laughter and tears, and it makes Merle think of the old world.

 

* * *

 

 

She knows whats happening long before they get there. Black smoke is billowing into the sweet Georgian sky, and there is a heat in the air that is some ungodly furnace. The cube van mutters miserably as it runs over one or two bodies of the dead, and groans to a stop when she pulls up alongside a military barricade.

 

And then she sees it – the great clouds of smoke are twisting from the skeleton of a building, and the military barricade is little more than a mass graveyard of half charred, half eaten bodies. There isn't even a walker in sight, and it isn't hard to suppose that the heat flaring off the building's remains was enough to deter them from approaching.

 

“Oh my god.”

 

The tone of her voice is enough to make Merle hesitate from his daydreams – the heat radiating off the window his head is resting against makes him flinch. He glances up sharply at Cal, brows furrowing as he takes in her wide eyed expression. They hadn't been around one another long, but he had seen only two expressions on her face; nothing or fuck-you.

 

But this... It makes him glance sharply out the window.

 

The burning building is nothing to him – at first--, but then he sees the blackened sign of twisted metal leaning against a parking booth. _CDC – Centre for Disease Control._  
  
He feels it come out from underneath him – the earth. Like someone's laughing in the distance and ripping a rug out from beneath his feet. It's a weird feeling; like nothing he's ever felt. It starts off hollow – a sort of disbelief that's waiting to be laughed off as a joke.

 

But then he looks around and it isn't a joke. This is the CDC and it is on fire.

 

He remembers when he was in prison, and Daryl wasn't anything more than a boy. And the call he'd gotten and the tears that whispered through his younger brother's voice still stuck in his head. Hardly more than a boy, and Daryl had told him their momma had died in a fire. Merle hadn't cried or anything; he'd been too damn pissed off to care.

 

“He's dead then,” Merle says, and he can't help but scratch at his nose to try and chase that weird, sick feeling that's crawling up his throat. He doesn't look away, he can't -- not with the fire spitting black smoke into the sky, not with it still licking the bones of the CDC and shattering them to ash. He doesn't even look away when he remembers Daryl's voice over the phone, and those sad little words ' _fire ate 'er up. Ain't nothing left. It's like she was never here.'  
_

He doesn't even have time to stand in that heat and wonder what it's like to die in flames. One moment they're sitting there, and the next Cal is hissing _walkers_ and she's right – there they are, stumbling from the streets around the fire, into the heat. One catches on fire and walks towards them without pause – eventually it collapses, sizzling to ash.

_  
_“We gotta go,” Cal is hissing, but Merle isn't listening. He's just looking out the window, staring at the fire. And as she throws the car into drive and leaves the blackened graveyard behind, Merle turns away from the flames, thinking about his little brother.

 

“Ain't nothing left,” he says.

__  
  
It's like he was never here.  



	4. Chapter 4

They drive. Merle quiet and sweating; Cal's mind reeling and calculating and wondering. She doesn't like being with another person. Too much can go wrong, especially with a man like Merle – angry and sick as he is. The cop had been her one chance; she doubts that Merle would be so kind as to slip the van keys into her hand and walk away.

 

The burning CDC recedes behind them until all that's left is a great and billowing cloud. A glance at the side-view mirrors suggests there are no walkers following them as they drive slowly through the streets, although the occasional one shambles out of an alley and stares longingly after them. She doesn't watch to see if they begin their creaking lope after the van; she'd rather not think about it.

 

“We're going to need food,” she says. “My pack is getting low, and you still need antibiotics.”

 

Merle doesn't say anything. He is staring out the window.

 

“Edge of the city is probably best,” she's muttering, wondering why she's even trying to include him – wondering why she's even wasting her breath. “Grab what we need, and get out.”

 

Merle lets out a huff.

 

“And then we're going to head out of Atlanta.

 

His head jerks up and he's staring at her, “we leavin' the city?”

 

She barely nods, “it's not safe here.”

 

Merle lets out a low, scathing laugh, “ain't no where safe.”

* * *

 

The small strip mall is quiet, idyllic. It's on the edge of town in a nice little suburb. The only indication that the world has gone to hell is the lack of cars in the parking lot, and the sale sign in one of the department store windows that proudly proclaims a weekend sale that was suppose to happen over a month ago.

  
They both sit in silence, staring across the parking lot to the drug store perched quietly at the end of the strip. It's weird to just sit and watch and wait – like something that they might have done long ago when the parking lot was bustling with life. Instead they're looking out across a desolate slab of concrete, wondering if going into the drug store is more of a death sentence than turning and leaving.

 

The silence stretches on and on. Cal eventually fishes out the last chocolate bars – both malformed and squishing in their wrappers. They eat in silence, and afterward they suck at the flavour left on their teeth and marvel at the sugar sitting heavily in their guts.

 

“There should be some food in there – and water,” Merle mutters. The fever in his eyes is dripping away, replaced by an expression of relief. Cal had handed him her newly acquired bottle of Tylenol earlier – “ _W_ _hy the hell is there a sock in here?”_ He'd asked, wincing when he downed a handful of the pills in one go.

 

“And medicine for you,” she glances down at his arm. “Sterile bandages. Antibiotic creams.”

 

“You ain't riskin' your life for me, girl. I know better.”

 

She nods, “you're right. I'm not.” He sputters, and she ignores him. “If I don't get us some food and water we might as well just take a walk downtown.” She doesn't take the keys from the ignition as she swings the doors open. “If I'm not back in twenty – I'm dead.”

 

Merle doesn't even have a chance to say anything; she's off and walking across the parking lot, hunting knife in one hand and the backpack slung across her back.

 

Cal knows it's stupid; hell, coming back into the city was stupid. She was shacked up with a one armed redneck who was a proving to be little more than a chauvinistic pig, and she was risking her own neck to get him something for the arm he had cut off himself. All she can think about was when she'd have a chance to leave him behind, and find somewhere to hide out. She isn't deluded enough to think Merle was permanent partner material – he was loud, obnoxious and was more than likely to kill her than get her killed.

 

Cal doesn't approach the drug store head on. She swings out further into the parking lot to get a clear view down the building's side. From what she can see there is neither hide nor hair of a walker, or anything else for that matter. She glances over her shoulder at the van, somewhat surprised to see it still sitting there forlornly in the parking lot. Merle waves at her; she turns away.

 

The store's insides are dark, and the front door is locked. She lets out a sigh of relief at the fact, knowing if there were walkers going to be inside it'd be one or two – not a horde. She's quick to slide her knife against the window, letting the tip of the blade tap against the glass. She holds her breath for a moment, listening and waiting for anything to react.

 

Nothing.

 

Cal lets out a long breath, the words of the cop echoing in her mind. _Don't be afraid._

 

She checks over her shoulder before sliding around the side of the building and into the alley. The regret of leaving her exit out of sight and unprotected burns at the back of her throat, and she shoulders the possibility that she might have to rely on Merle to get out of any situation unscathed. The thought lingers in the back of her mind, toxic and unwelcome.   
  
She blinks and moves around to the back door, hesitating when she catches sight of a car parked awkwardly next to the garbage dumpster. The whole scene is eery – a dusted car with a door propped open; the dark interior spilling out a handful of swollen cardboard boxes. Cal stoops low enough to look beneath the car's underbelly – only a few scattered papers stick to the concrete.

 

She stands up and moves to the door, her eyes glancing back and forth between the pharmacy entrance and the car. She is tucking herself behind the door as she taps the tip of her knife against the handle. _Tap-tap-tap._ For a long moment after she waits, one hand splayed across the door. She's listening and waiting and _feeling._

  
No moans. No sounds. No scratching hands clawing at the door.  
  


Another long moment draws out, and then she's moving forward. The door is pulled open and she's in, her knife raised and her legs bent; her mind reeling and her muscles screaming; her neck itching and her back sweating. _Don't be afraid._

 

There is nothing. No walkers, no bodies – that she can see –, but she knows they're here because the door was unlocked and the car was abandoned and it just doesn't make sense. She knows they're here because there hadn't been a sign of forced entry. She knows they're here because it's just too damn quiet for them not to be.

 

She moves forward slowly, her eyes darting along the shelves of the back room and towards another door on the opposite wall – it sits ajar. There's a sign taped to it, a comical face smiling back – _remember to smile when providing excellent customer service._

 

Cal takes one step forward, and then another, and another. She pulls it shut and snaps the lock into place before she even breathes. She sweeps the backroom quickly, grimacing as every shelf is a separate aisle and the light from the small windows overhead is hardly adequate. She never really considered how her life was similar to a horror movie until this moment.   
  


She starts shuffling through the shelves when the backroom looks clear, digging up a few bottles of antibiotic capsules, and painkillers, and creams and even pulling down a large bag of sterile wraps and pads. Everything is shoved into her backpack, and then she's standing up and eying the locked door to the front of the store. The comical face is still smiling, though the thought that the door had been open when she first arrived leaves a shadow hanging around its joyous expression.

 

She inches forward, her hand tightening on her knife to stop herself from trembling.

 

_Don't be afraid._

 

She unlocks the door and eases it open, wincing when it wheezes pitifully. She holds her breath and waits, hoping the sound wasn't enough to attract the attention of whatever might have left that door ajar in the first place.

 

And then she's through, slinking behind the counter and easing her way out and into the actual store front. Right away she notices the pool of dried blood, brown and flaking and _empty._

 

She nearly curses when she turns the corner and finds the thing slumped against the foot of the pharmacist counter, wheezing pathetically. It's just a torso at this point; its legs are gone from the knees down, and its hands are little more than boney stumps. It would have to try a great deal to even slide a few feet, let alone pursue her through the store. But Cal doesn't wait for it to _wake up_ and recognize her – she plunges the hunting knife into the top of its head and continues on without a backwards glance.

 

The front windows cast the store in an eery light. Everything is back-lit like some bizarre stage production. The colours of the outside world are muted by the tinted windows, and everything inside is lit with shadowed sunlight. Cal watches carefully, moving through the shelves with wide eyes. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the cube van still parked alone, and the other she can see the walker torso slumped abjectly against the counter.

 

She's moving through the small food aisle, pushing bags of noodles and boxes of pop tarts into her bag, when it happens – a stray, wayward thought. It stops her in her tracks, one hand on her backpack and the other on a bag of peanuts. She shoulders the bag, hand suddenly going to her thigh and drawing the hunting knife from its sheath. The metal grinds softly in her ears. Her footsteps are silent as she moves down the aisle, her eyes wide and breath long and slow.

 

She can't hear anything except the rush of her own heart – it's starting to sound like some sad song, whistled into the golden evening.

 

When she turns the corner she looks down. Down at the torso slumped against the counter. Down. At the torso. Without its legs.

 

She doesn't say anything, although the foremost thought in her mind is a raging scream along the lines of _where the fuck did your legs go?_ Instead she turns wildly around, eyes searching the store for any movement – anything contrasting sharply against the back lighting of the front windows.   
  
There is a fear there in the pit of her gut. A regret at having not realized earlier. Walkers didn't eat their own damn legs. Walkers didn't just spawn missing a few limbs. At one point that someone laying against the counter had had feet – and at one point something had eaten them off.

 

At first she doesn't see anything, and she slides along the counter, eying each and every aisle as she goes. It's only as she makes it back to that first aisle – the aisle she had been gathering food in – that she sees it. A shadowed figure standing in the light in the same spot she had stood only moments before.

 

The walker doesn't move – not at first –, it simply stands and sways. It doesn't groan. It doesn't creak. It simply exists in silence. A shiver races down her spine, the thought of the thing having followed her through the store so soundlessly leaves her breathless.

 

There isn't time for stealth. The thing turns slowly, and even though she can't see it's face she feels that familiar dread – that familiar wonder if it's someone she knows. And it's funny, she thinks, considering she knew a handful of people in Atlanta before, and they were probably off tearing into some other poor souls at this point.

 

The pharmacist tag on the walker's coat catches the light. Milky eyes blink and squint and widen as they consider her. For a long moment neither moves.

 

_One, two, three –_  
  
Cal's hand tightens on her knife. The walker's teeth click, head lolling back at it regards her – and then it lets loose a low, rattling moan. It takes a lurching step forward, lips peeling back to reveal a row of chipped teeth cloaked in dark pieces of meat.

 

She walks to meet it, dipping ceremoniously under its arm. Her knife-hand lifts, the blade tucking neatly into the temple. The thing collapses, hitting the ground with a loud crack that makes her grimace. Cal wipes the knife on the pharmacist coat. She doesn't look at the walker's tag, or the picture of the smiling man. She simply turns and walks away.

 

She's grabbing a few bottles of water from one of the Pepsi fridges when she hears the engine of the van start up. She glances out the window. It isn't Merle taking off and leaving her behind – but rather a dozen walkers ambling awkwardly out from a nearby alley. As the van rolls forward and towards the drug store, the walkers catch notice and begin their stiff lope towards the vehicle.

 

She hurriedly grabs a few more bottles of water and slings the backpack over her arm – and then she's running for the front door. Merle is yelling – she can hear him through the glass –, and more and more of the walkers are pouring out from alleyways and yards and houses at the sound of his voice. She's cursing him as she unlocks the front doors and bolts for the van; she's hissing that he's an idiot as she throws herself into the passenger seat beside him.

 

He hollers and laughs, and then peels out of the parking lot with a squeal. When she makes to glance at the side mirror he shakes his head. “I wouldn't if I was you.”

 

She glares at him and does anyway – and then wishes she didn't.

 

The walkers loping after the van are like a wave. They're pouring out of every house, every complex, every open building or side street. She remembers the silence; that eery peace before she'd gone in the store.

 

“Thank you,” she says.

 

Merle grunts, “fo' what?”  
  
“Not leaving me behind.”   
  
He doesn't say anything – he just glances at her pack.

 

* * *

 

 

They're pulled off somewhere on the side of the interstate just outside of Atlanta. A canvas tarp they found in the van's box is draped shoddily across the back of the cab, effectively hiding the light of the single flashlight key chain propped between them from the outside world. Cal taps it every time it flickers and stutters, explaining carefully that she'd found it in a dollar store.

 

“I could go for a nice, cold beer,” Merle is popping chips into his mouth, chewing and tonguing his teeth. He glances up at her from his bag of Doritos, his lips twitching. “What 'bout you, girly?”

 

Cal shrugs, licking her fingers clean of any wayward cheese powder. “Didn't you have a beer already today?”

 

Merle lets out a low, raspy laugh, “warm, skunky beer ain't a beer – it's piss.” Cal glances up at him. Merle scowls and holds out his hand, “pass me my pills.”

 

She tosses him the bottle, “take too many and they're gonna flush right through you.”

 

Merle smirks as he downs two more of the tablets, washing them down with a swig of water. “This here ain't my first walk 'round the ballpark with some antibiotics, girly. No need to worry your sweet little self over it.” He doesn't toss the bottle back – she doesn't say anything about it.

 

For a long while after they sit in silence – it isn't awkward, but neither is it companionable. If she was to call it anything, it would be apathetic.They simply sit and eat and breathe. They don't worry about that achy feeling in their stomachs, or the fact that both of them have had their fair share of near death experiences in the past few days. They're just two people stuck in a cube van with a nightmare walking outside – and for a moment, they don't care.

 

“You have family?” Merle's voice is shocking in the silence, and she glances up sharply from the crumbs of her chips to stare at him. “You have family, huh? Lil' boy on your hip? Sweet momma bakin' you pies? A boy to worry 'bout?”

 

Cal stares. She just thinks about what the world once was, and how it is now, and wonders if Merle ever even had a momma to bake him pie. She had already assumed earlier in the day that hell spat him out and told him never to come back. Her lips twitch, barely, as she imagines Merle being fussed over by a woman twice his age.

 

“How about you?” She turns it back on him. “You got a wife? Kids? A trailer? A sweet momma to bake you pies?”

 

His grin falls away quickly and is replaced with his crude, jaw jutting scowl. She can practically hear him grinding his teeth. “Ain't none o' your business.”

 

Her stare hardens, “likewise.”

 

They go silent. She can feel his eyes on her, but she busies herself by sliding her pack over and digging through the brain. Merle isn't quiet for long. “How'd you get out?” He's asking, and she's wondering if he'll ever stop asking her about _her._  
  
She lets out an annoyed breath and glances up at him. “A cop,” she says after a moment. “Older man. Picked me up off the road and put a gun in my hand and told me plainly to shoot anything that looked hungry.”  
  
He had a kindness to his face, she thinks. The kind that you didn't see often – even then.

 

“Sounds like a smart man.”

 

She notices hows his eyes shift briefly to her pack – and then he's looking away and sucking the cheese powder off his finger tips. She's had too many run-ins with other survivors to not feel suspicious. The world had twisted people up, and a cursory glance now preluded the truth more often than not. There was a need in the new world; a need so deep in a person that they were willing to kill for it. She hadn't known it then, but it had become obvious over the past week that the cop's words had been encompassing – the world wasn't filled with only one sort of evil.

 

“Yeah,” she says warily. She clutches the bag until her knuckles ache, and eventually she tells Merle to sleep – that she'll take first watch. He belly aches over the idea of having to _watch_ at all, but eventually nods off.

 

When he sits up a few hours later and tells her to get some rest she just shakes her head and says she's not tired.

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

She doesn't sleep. She grabs maybe a handful of rest before she jolts awake, fingers dancing across the hilt of the hunting knife and her breath held tight in her chest. She mistakes the cube van for a closet, and she's reaching and groping in the dark until the pack is there in her hands instead of a twisted vacuum pipe. For a long moment afterward she sits in the quiet, listening.

 

And no matter how she controls her breathing, no matter what silent thoughts she sends hoping he won't notice she's awake – he does.

 

“It ain't time for your watch,” he says.

 

“It's okay,” she replies. “I can't sleep.”

 

By the time they're a few days out from the drug store Cal is haggard. She can feel the wear and tear of both hunger and her sleeplessness. She's on edge, growing more wary of Merle with every restless night. She can't help but watch him, the wariness she had felt that first day mutating into paranoia. With every passing breath he does something to set her on edge – a wayward glance, a hungry glare, the subtle twitching of his fingers.  
  
Merle notices her vigilance. He snaps at her one afternoon to _quit her staring._

 

She can feel it; that same quiet that had hung around the drug store now surrounds them. A silence – a queer calm that waits with bated breath. She knows it's only a matter of time. She doesn't quite know what the end game is going to look like, but she has an inkling it'll end with them going their separate ways.

 

* * *

 

 

She tells him about a group – one that doesn't exist, but that is a _minor detail –_ and that said group is outside of Atlanta. He accepts this, and so the congested roads of rural Georgia became their new storming ground.

 

Cal's pack is low, water is all they have now – that and antibiotics –, but it still isn't enough. They had been on the interstate for a while, but the roads are no longer reliable. They're mass graveyards that force them to duck and weave – funneling them down certain back roads and then randomly spitting them back out onto the I-85. Eventually they're so turned around that the van is suddenly rattling over a cattle guard and they're both staring up at an abandoned house tucked forlornly amongst a copse of trees.

 

For a long while they sit in the van and stare up at the house and at the trees and the road behind them. “We need food,” Cal finally says, and Merle agrees.

 

They slip out of the van, Cal slinging her pack over her back while eying the mean knife in Merle's hand – recently liberated from an abandoned truck. She leaves the keys in the ignition, and shuts the door as quietly as she can. With one last glance back down the road she turns to regard the house, her breath held tight in her chest.

 

The old house isn't boarded up. It isn't in any way different than it might have been any other time in its life – except that it is as quiet as the wood that surrounds it. The curtains are drawn on all the windows; the wrap-around porch is covered in a fine layer of undisturbed dust; and the front door is shut.

 

They move forward, the afternoon light glancing through the trees to offer them a smattering of sun drops. Merle walks ahead, Cal having dropped back to let him pass.

 

The pack is light on her back; her fingers itch to do up the chest and hip straps. She doesn't. She knows better than to secure something to her body that could become a liability.

 

The porch creaks when Merle takes a step, and they both wince. She lets out a long and deep breath, willing herself to hear anything – anything that suggests that something or someone is inside. The deep quiet is reassuring. Eventually they move up to the door – it's locked. She lets out a breath, and Merle casts her a look. She doesn't say anything.

 

Merle is the one that gets them in. He takes the butt of his knife and smashes a small hole into a panel of glass beside the door knob. He reaches in and unlocks it. The door creaks open. “Not the smartest thing,” she hisses, “sticking your hand into some dark hole.”

 

“Depends,” Merle smirks back at her and Cal stops dead in her tracks.

 

“Pig,” she squeezes past him and into the house, moving quickly into the first room to the right. Her knife is poised to strike, her other arm held out in front of her. The position is ready. Her legs bent and weight low. Her heart beat is a bruising staccato in her chest, and her breath slides evenly from her lungs.

 

She stands in a quaint living room. A television tucked neatly off in a corner, and a plethora of woodsy furniture hugs the walls. A deer head mounted on the far wall stares down at her, its glassy eyes sightless and eternal.

 

“I'll check upstairs,” Merle mutters, his voice already far away as he begins creaking up the stairs.

 

Cal moves fast. She scours the lower floor, trying hard not to look at the framed photos lining the walls or the personal touches of a family long dead. Betty and Graham Gray; she spots their names cross stitched above a window overlooking a quaint back yard. She swallows hard and continues on.

 

Compartmentalization. It was something she'd learned at an early age; something she'd needed lest she become like her mother – a catatonic mess waiting for someone to come home from a far off war. But even she had a hard time standing in someone's house, staring at what once was their lives and their past and their future. She made sure to never look at the photographs; she never searched the faces of people who were long gone and dead.

 

It sits wrong in her gut that she knows the names of the couple who had owned this house.

 

Eventually she finds the kitchen, and its there that she finds the food. A few cans of non-perishables. Beans, peaches, some sort of mystery meat that makes her mouth water. She's fishing them into her pack when Merle shows up, a grin on his face.

 

“Look'it,” he's holding up a baggy of prescription drugs. A shirt is draped over his arm.

 

“Where'd you get that?” She turns back to the cupboard and pulls out a pack of rotten cookies.

 

“Bathroom.” She makes a sound in her throat and moves on to the next, there are a few bottles of water, and even a bucket of powdered lemonade. “Not a lot, huh?”

 

“Nope,” she mutters, tossing the bucket into the pack. They make short work of the kitchen, pulling out the food first, but then proceeding on to the drawers. She pulls out a roll of duct tape and tucks it neatly away in her backpack.  
  
“Found some clothes upstairs. Thought a change might do,” Merle's voice is coming from the living room, and when she pokes her head in she finds him sitting on the couch staring at the television. He's thumbing the buttons of a new shirt tucked on beneath his vest. He grins at her. “Makes me some sort of handsome, huh?”

 

She leaves him there in the living room and moves upstairs, moving through the doors that Merle had obviously thrown open. The first room at the top is a bathroom, the drawers tossed open and rifled through. She grabs the tooth brush sitting in a cup beside the sink and tucks it away in her pack.

 

The next few rooms are storage; the skeleton of old beds tucked against corners; cardboard boxes that are nibbled and chewed on by squirrels; a room full of toys and books and games. Every room echoes of life, but in the end they are just that – echoes. Rooms full of memories long past – of a time when the house had pulsed with life.

 

She hesitates when she pushes open the last door and realizes it is the bedroom of Betty and Graham.

 

She swallows at the sight of the open closet, the discarded clothes littering the floor that Merle had obviously tossed about. The bed is still made; a fine layer of dust distorts the crisp lines and bright colours of the duvet.

 

For a long moment she stands in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She has done this before – rifled through people's homes and taken what she'd needed -, but something as simple as knowing Betty and Graham's names leaves a foul taste in her mouth. It's no longer disconnected – she can imagine their faces, their disappointment.

 

She takes a hesitant step inside the room, and then another.

 

Slowly she makes her way around the room, pushing past her discomfort, reminding herself of the familiar disconnect she had felt in the city as she pushed into people's apartments and abandoned lives. She moves to the closet, peering in at the few clothes that were left behind. Frilly lace collars and woolen sweaters stare back at her. She grimaces and shrugs on one of the large flannel, not caring if it smells like moths.

 

She scouts the rest of the room, indifferent that Merle already had. She finds a photo album beside the bed, open to a page with a small finger painted flower and a short and sweet note that says _To Grandma._  
  
She tucks the album away, her lips thin as she opens the bedside stand. It's there that she finds a gun.

 

It's unexpected really. Firstly, that Merle hadn't found it himself. Secondly, that it's even there. A gun left in so plain a place said as much as a splash of gore might have. One way or another Betty and Graham were gone.

 

Before she can quite comprehend what she's doing, she's tugging the handgun out from the drawer of the bed stand. For a long moment she stares at it, her back slicking with a sudden sweat. She can feel the sweet chill of a gun against her temple; she can smell the slick tang of gun-oil. And then she blinks and it's gone; the chill is replaced by that stuffy Georgia heat, and the smell of the house is musty and old.

 

She doesn't know why she does it, but she wraps it carefully in one of Betty's lacy purple shirts and shoves it ceremoniously into the brain of the pack. Her hand lingers on the zipper, trepidation flaring in her.

 

And then she returns to Merle, and they leave Betty and Graham's house behind.

* * *

 

 

There was a taste to the air. A peculiar flavour that was part Georgia sweetness, and part dead. It would slide right into your mouth and leave a thickness at the back of your throat. In the heart of Atlanta it had been thicker and grittier, prompted by the concrete jungle that baked the air with the summer heat. In the country there were moments of reprieve; in the country there were moments when rolling down the window of the cube van didn't mean getting a face full of walker stench.

 

Merle had wanted the air conditioning on. “Just for a moment,” he'd said. The cool air had circled around for _just a moment_ before he flicked it off. The gas gauge was just under half a tank, “best not waste much, huh.”  
  


Afterward, when the coolness leaks away, they roll down their windows. The wind breathes in and swirls around them. It smells sweet, but not the kind of sweetness the dead leak off – more like peaches and beautiful hills and a sky that was endless blue. It smells like thunderstorms in the afternoon -- cloud bursts that rumbled and wept and went on into the distance forever. Maybe that's why they both succumb to a quiet – their hearts ache for a time long past.

 

A time they'll never see again.

 

* * *

 

 

“You ever just... have a feelin'?” Merle mumbles around his food, eying her from across the dim lighting of the flashlight.

 

“What sort of feeling?” She's not looking at him, she's staring down at her own can of beans.

 

Merle shrugs, and pokes at the spongy meat in his can. “Like you see somethin', but you ain't sure it's real, you know?”

 

She thinks about it, mulling over what to say. “Like this whole mess we're living right now?”  
  
“Nah,” Merle says.

  
And he stares off towards Atlanta, towards the black cloud still circling into the sky.

* * *

 

 

 

The days turn gray as the sky thickens with clouds, and the van chokes on the last fumes of its gas tank. Cal pinches her lips as they crest the hill, and then she's shifting into neutral and they're soaring down the slope in silence. Just as they begin to slow down she's back in drive, pushing the van a few more miles. _A_ _few more miles._

 

Merle is quieter than usual. The fever in his eyes is gone, but he's still pushing antibiotics past his lips every moment she looks at him. He cradles his amputated arm to his chest and fingers the bandages – and now duct tape – wrapped around the end.

 

Eventually the van dies, and they stand in the middle of the road and stare at it with incredulous eyes. The last cars they had seen had been nearly ten miles back, and with the two empty water bottles they had been using to siphon gas there was no way it'd be worth the trip. Merle isn't happy about leaving it, but eventually Cal convinces him that they should continue on foot.

 

“I'll carry the pack for you,” he offers.

 

Cal shrugs, “it's fine.” She shoulders the familiar weight and starts walking in the direction they'd been headed.

 

It isn't long before they find the town. One moment they're walking in the countryside, and the next they're standing awkwardly at the top of a small incline. Cal glasses the town with her binoculars, her lips tight as she sees a handful of walkers on the far side of the main road.

 

“Find a spot to catch a few winks,” Merle murmurs. “Maybe find a gas-can or a fresh car in the mornin'.”

 

They wander down into the town. Cal doesn't like it. It reminds her of the quiet in the suburb – a deep silence that grins wickedly back. She has her knife at the ready. Merle mirrors her, his eyes wide and jaw tight. Both of them say nothing as they move down the road, and for the first time Cal acknowledges that Merle is quite light on his feet.

 

They break into a small building tucked at the end of the block. A _For Lease_ sign hangs in the window. Cal almost grins with joy when they see the gutted insides – only white walls, a front window papered over, and two doors standing opposite one another. The room is hardly big enough for a post office; it was like they hadn't left the cube van behind at all.

 

As they settle in for the night it begins to rain. The sharp crack of thunder is deafening, and Cal curls up against the window with her long shirt tucked around her arms and hands. She rips the a small triangle into the paper and stares out across the road – _Hatlin's Bar_ stares back at her, dark and ominous and shadowed.

 

When their stomachs start to rumble she tugs the pack closer to herself. Merle watches her. He watches the pack. He sees the flash of purple in it, a brilliant contrast to the greyness of the world outside. He doesn't say anything about it; he asks for his ration of water to go along with his beans. He sees that flash of purple again. The binoculars. The tooth brush. The ever dwindling cans of food and water.

 

She's distracted. She doesn't see the way he's staring at the pack or how, when she holds that purple fabric _just right,_ he knows exactly what she has. She doesn't see the recognition in his eyes – the realization that she had never intended on sharing _that_ little item with him.

 

She doesn’t see the pills he'd been popping aren’t antibiotics at all, but some sweet cocktail made up for one Betty Gray.

 

* * *

 

 

There are limits, of course. Go for sleep too long and eventually you start feeling your temper get a bit short or you start seeing things – or you don't see anything at all. In the past week with Merle she'd gotten a handful of minutes – restless and stiff and uneasy sleep that left her feeling leeched and dead.  
  
She hardly sleeps that night, even though she goes to bed with a can of beans in her belly and the pack tucked behind her. The cans of food are easy to ignore, but the familiar nose poking into her neck leaves her staring up at the ceiling for what feels like hours.

 

She hasn't told Merle about the gun; she doesn't plan on being around him long enough for it to matter. She had told herself when she found him that she'd help him get back on his feet, and then she'd start wandering out from the cities, maybe find a cabin in the woods and live a while longer. Alone. She hadn't wanted to run the gauntlet with others. Too much could happen. People were the unpredictable element, not the walkers.

 

It had been walkers that had terrorized the world those first few weeks, but then the screams of the terrified became the screams of the tortured. She had sat in her found apartment and watched as a man dragged a woman and her child out onto the street. Cal had heard only a handful of words from the woman before the man pushed her down: _we won't eat any of your food, just let us in!_ He had retreated back inside and shut the door on her; her pleading cries and the child’s screams had attracted the walkers, and they had died.  
  
Snuffed out by someone who wasn't looking to _live,_ but to survive.

  
People were the cruelty in the world; not the horrors that shambled aimlessly through the streets.

 

Merle hadn't done anything blatantly suspicious, but there was that doubt there in the back of her mind. She had been alone for too long now to give in and stay shackled with the first survivor who hadn't tried to kill her. She had been alone too long to even consider relying on another person – even if he had saved her life back at the drug store.

 

She was better on her own. On her own she could be quiet. There wasn't room for noise in this new world – and Merle was a thunderclap rolling in on high.

 

* * *

 

Morning light filters in through the paper, bleeding the room with a yellowed glow. There is that familiar sweetness to the air; a softness to the sunlight slipping dreamily onto her face. For a moment, however brief it may be, she imagines the world as it once was. Soft sheets, warm breath across her cheeks...

 

Breakfast is a can of mystery meat. Both her and Merle are quiet. She glances up when he slips a few pills into his mouth. Eventually they both toss the empty cans aside and stand – a quick glance out the papered window and Merle is murmuring ' _clear'._ They filter out of the front door and into the street.

 

“Y'know. I'm thinkin' you should let me carry the pack for a while. Lil' thing like you – it's probably real heavy, huh?”

 

She glances up at Merle as they walk. “No,” she says quietly. “It's fine.”

 

“Ya sure?”

 

“It's fine,” she repeats.

 

She doesn't see the look he shoots her.

 

They find a car a few blocks away tucked in the driveway of a small bungalow. The keys are on the ground. An arc of brown crust clings to the window, Cal stares at it for a long moment before she stoops down and grabs the keyring.

 

“Previous owner wasn't too lucky, huh?” Merle asks, leaning against the side of the car. Cal sorts through the key, sliding one after another into the lock to test them out.

 

“Good idea to have a light keyring,” Cal hisses as she shoves the third key into the lock, the rest jingle merrily together. “Could get you killed.”

 

Merle makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

 

One of the last keys slides easily into the lock, but hesitates at the turn. The lock of the door is stiff, and so Cal wiggles the key a bit more before it lets out a soft _click._ She pulls the door open, and then turns to face him.

 

“Took ya long enough--”

 

The keys are flying through the air – he catches them against his chest.

 

“I ain't going,” she says, and Merle sputters. “Take the car, Merle.”

 

“What?”

 

“I'm not going with you.”

 

“The hell you ain't. You got the pack.”  
  
She's slinging the bag off her shoulder and propping it on the ground, her hands are inside before he can protest and she's pulling out a few cans of mystery meat and beans, and a few bottles of water. She tosses them in the car. Merle looks angry and confused. “I can't, Merle. I'm better on my own.”

 

“But you ain't – you got your _group_.”

 

She ignores him and glances down the road, her breathing is even, but she can feel a drop of sweat sliding along her spine. “I'm going Merle.”

  
“No.”  
  
“Head for Fort Benning – there's suppose to be help there. I know some people there, good people, they'll set you up right.”

 

“What? You just gonna leave a one-armed man alone with no means a'protectin' himself?”  
  
“You'll be fine, Merle. You were fine before we met – hell, you're a tough son of a bitch. You're hardly defenseless. You got your knife,” she's hoists the pack onto her back and turns to walk away.  
  
Merle's voice reaches her, dark and cool and slick. “And what 'bout that gun, hm?”

 

He drips with arrogance.

 

As she turns to face him she imagines all those people from before: hands trembling and words stuttered as they held guns or knives or _shovels_ to her head. It's a weird feeling to be in the same situation she had been at the beginning of this entire thing; to be staring _another_ person in the eye and to see that same need --so deep and dark and real.

 

She's in his way. She's in the way of his survival. Everyone had one – a moment when there was nothing left but to take your breathe, or give your breath to someone else. The cop and the cruiser and the whistling tune. Or the man who threw a woman and child to the undead hoard, all for the sake of food and water and _more time._  
  
She knew when she had first met Merle that he wouldn't be pushing the car keys into her hand, and walking away into the setting sun. She had known she had to get away and get back out on her own, but she hadn't expected _this._

  
“ _Don't be afraid.”_

  
She's staring him in the eye, lips white. He's telling her to take off the pack and put it on the ground. She complies.

  
“What are you talking about?

 

“How 'bout the fact you' been keepin' that gun from me?”

 

She doesn't say anything.  
  


“You think I wasn't gonna see it? Damn near impossible when yer always rufflin' through that damn thing. I get it.” She blinks at him. “You think I ain't trustworthy? From where I'm standin' you're the one that ain't. I know you ain't got a group. I ain't seen nobody lie so bad. And you got a gun hidden in your bag, huh? Thinkin' 'bout usin' it on me when the chance is good? What're you, huh? Some man-eater? Lure me out into the woods and put a bullet in my brain?”

 

Merle's voice is hanging above their customary whispering by the time he takes a breath. His words punctuated by brief bouts of laughter. His eyes are wild and glassy and he's sweating heavily under his vest and shirt.  
  
“What the _fuck_ are you on?” She hisses at him.

 

He's ignoring her, his hand rubbing at his neck and his jaw tense. “You n' I – we gonna talk 'bout that pack of yours.”

 

She stares at him for a long moment. Her teeth ache from grinding, and she has to take a single long and deep breath to control the anger and frustration she's feeling. “You want the gun -- it's yours.”

 

Merle lets out a low laugh. “Nah-uh-uh, girly. I don' jus' want the gun. If we separating, I want that pack too.”

 

“No.”

 

Across the street a walker is spilling out of the side of an open car. It fumbles on the pavement before standing. It's head tilts towards them, mouth clicking when it realizes they're _alive._  
  


Cal notices. Merle doesn't -- he doesn't notice because his eyes are glassing over, his nerves are falling away, and he's feeling a bit like a cloud with all the Oxycontin he'd been popping.

  
He wipes a drop of sweat off his brow. “I need that bag.”

  
“I give you my pack, and I'm good as dead.” She's staring at him, trying not to watch as the walker takes one lurching step towards them – and then another and another.  
  
“I _need_ that bag,” he repeats.

 

His intensity isn't for himself – she notices the far away look in Merle's eye. She knows the look – too filled with sorrow to give up hope. It was something she was familiar with; something she knew and had felt once upon a time.

  
“You're going to go looking for him, aren't you?”

 

Merle blinks.  
  
The world stills – only for a moment.

 

And it's enough.  
  
Merle's jaw tenses, and his eyes grow dark. It looks like he's going to say something – like he's going to tell her to mind her own business. He doesn't even realize the walker is there until it's on top of him and the pair are collapsing to the ground. Merle is yelling, shoving the walker's mouth away as it snaps and clicks at his face. Cal is diving, grabbing the pack and slinging it onto her back and she's _running._

 

She's running. She's running because she has no choice and inaction means death. That peculiar spike of fear is driving her forward. It's propelling her across the pavement, and away from the walker – away from Merle. Merle, who she's leaving to die. Merle, who would have done the same to her. Merle, who was just looking for his _dead_ brother.  
  
Sweat is slicking down her back. Her hand itches for the gun nestled in Betty's lacy purple top. The pack slaps against her back; it's heavy, and it slows her down, but she isn't going to drop it. She can't.

 

She's hardly more than half a block when she realizes behind her the struggle has ceased. She doesn't turn to look. She keeps running.

 

Eventually, he catches up with her.

 

It's quiet and short and brutal.  
  
She's running one moment and falling the next, catching herself on her hands and belly and sliding on the concrete until she's bloody and raw. Merle is on her in moments, his foot catching her across the face. For a great and terrible breath she stares up at the sky, her vision dancing with darkness – and then she's being pushed over and he's pulling the pack from her back.

 

“Well now,” his voice is cracking and loud and unstoppable. She stares up at him blearily, some part of her screaming to get up and another part telling her _no, just stay there and die._ “Would'a been a lot easier had you just handed it over.”

 

She doesn't say anything – she can't. She just stares up at him – all _five_ of him.

 

He's swinging the pack onto his own back, staring down at her with those glassy eyes of his.

 

“No,” her lips feel thick and her mouth feels heavy. She claws feebly at him with the other hand, but he just kicks her hand off and starts walking away.

 

As she lays there in the road she decides that she had been right, and if she survived this she'd never trust another human again. But maybe it won't matter, she thinks, accepting the darkness clutching at the edge of her vision as the inevitable approach of her death.

 

For a brief moment she sees nothing but a folded flag being pressed into her hands; rows upon rows of identical grave markers; a woman and child shrieking as a wave of flesh falls upon them...

 

And suddenly the sky above.

 

Something stops her from giving in. Something is there in the back of her mind and it's yelling and screaming and shouting. She can't give up that easily. Not after having fought so long and so hard to just be able to breathe. Not after _everything_ that has happened. Her hands burn as she pushes herself off the ground. She nearly collapses when she stands.  
  
_“Shoot anything that looks hungry.”_  
  
He's walking. She's not. She lurches after him, her hand wrapping around her hunting knife and drawing it from its sheathe.  
  
She is on him. Silent. Her knife is burying into his shoulder. Merle yells. His own knife is arcing through the air, flashing gold in the morning light. She hardly registers the pain as it catches her in the side. She can feel the blood dancing down her ribs, but she doesn't care.

 

She just needs the pack back.

 

Even with one arm Merle is a vicious and unrelenting fighter. The pain of the knife wound doesn't slow him down, if anything it kindles a rage in him that results in her flying across the concrete and her knife skittering away from her reach. She's frantic, clawing to her hands and knees and lurching towards the knife. Suddenly he's on her, grabbing her shoulder and pinning her on her back.

 

And then she's gritting her teeth and driving her knife at him, hoping it connects with something – _anything._ It slides into his arm. He's yelling and pushing her head back into the road; her skull cracks against the concrete ---

 

_one._

_two._

_three._

_four._

 

\--and then she's blinking.  
  
She doesn't say anything. She stares up at the sky and wonders why she's drunk. She rolls onto her belly and pushes herself up, and staggers over and hits the ground on her side. She can't see straight. She can't stand or see or hear like she's supposed to. There's a buzzing and a throbbing everywhere.  
  
In the distance a car lurches out from a driveway, and rumbles down the street.

 

She sees _them._ Even in her stupor she knows what they are. They're wandering out from the yards and alleys – a handful, hardly more than half a dozen.

 

Her bloodied knife is discarded a few feet away, just out of reach.

 

When the first walker lets out a crackling moan, it is enough to get her to her feet.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

_ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. we're all the same._

 

* * *

 

 

The wind had been still, and the city had been quiet – until she had heard the woman crying out, and her child clinging to her leg and _screaming._ She had been on the second story of a high rise apartment across the street; she was close enough to see the woman's fear – how real it was.

 

And she had seen the look on the man's face as he pushed them out and into the street. She had watched as he flew back into his home, and just before he locked the door she had seen a need – the same need that had burned so fervently in Merle's eyes. A trembling of his heart; a darkness found in the name of survival; the scared and wild search for _more time._

 

She wasn't bad at compartmentalizing – it was something she had learned at an early age –, but there was something in her that was broken. The doors had opened, and she was remembering every moment, every second, every breath in which she saw mankind stain their hands with red.

 

And her own.

 

That woman and child, screaming and pleading and crying, had been only a floor down. She had been beside the fire escape, staring at them from her open window. It would have been so easy to just lean out and yell to them to run up the ladder.

 

' _Come here. I will protect you,'_ were the words she had never said. She hadn't even thought of them at the time. She had simply slouched back into her closet and waited for the screaming to stop. It had been so much easier to turn away; to sit and wait and _not think about it._

 

Just for more time.

 

And why was she looking for more time? Why were any of them? The walkers had been the horror in those first few days, but then man had redirected himself. This apocalypse wasn't about the end of mankind – it was the end of humanity – it was the end of goodness and empathy and compassion as they flung it to the wind, all for the sake of _more time.  
  
_ Mankind would persevere; but humanity – it was _dying._

 

She hits the ground hard, letting out a gasp as gravel slides along the rawness of her bloodied hands and arms. She struggles to her feet and stumbles on and down the road – the walkers are loping behind her, letting out rattling cries as she evades their ever reaching hands.

 

Like those hands – shaking and trembling as they pressed a gun to her head – more afraid of what they were doing than the world outside.

 

“ _Do it,”_ she'd said. “ _Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do.”_

 

Those people, desperate and hungry, were looking for _more time._ They all were. Survive or opt out or die and come back. And somewhere along the way, survival had become something twisted. Survival had become about surviving, and not living.

 

And everyone just wanted more time.

 

But really – was there anything worth _living_ for? When the promised life was running and hiding and waking to a day full of fear? A short and brutal life, hounded by the dead and living alike.

 

Her legs come out from beneath her as she goes around a corner. For a moment afterward she stares up at the sky – sweet Georgia blue – and wonders if she should even try to get up again.

 

There is nothing left.

 

She is running out of time.

 

When she was twelve her father came into her room and sat with her. He'd been gone a long time; her mother always sat at the window and clutched his clothes to her chest and stared down the road with this sad look in her eye – too filled with sorrow to give up hope.

 

And he'd come home and he'd kissed his wife on the cheek, and then he'd sat down in his daughter's room and watched her sleep. When she had woken up the next morning he was still sitting there, awake and waiting.

 

“ _You came back,”_ she'd whispered.

 

Her father was a man of few words. He'd always been quiet. Sometimes she thought she saw a sadness in his eyes, but he'd blink it away and look off into the sky. When she spoke to him that morning she hadn't expected a word in reply. She had expected only that deep and contemplative silence he assumed, but instead he had murmured, “ _I'll always try to make it back to you.”_

 

“ _I'll always try...--”_

 

She's breathing hard, and her heart is pounding, but even over the cacophony of her own body she can hear the walkers desperate moans. They're drawing closer – and she hesitates. She hesitates in laying down and dying because her father is there in her mind, sitting in his chair beside her bed and murmuring the softest words: _I'll always try._  
  
It is a struggle. Her strength is eking away. She can feel the dullness pulling at the edge of her mind, and a weakness shaking in her arms and legs. Her side is warm; the kind of warm that reminds her of days spent lounging in a warm bed; the kind of warm that makes her want to close her eyes and rest her weary head. For a moment she almost does. Her eyes almost shut – but then she's reaching and digging her fingers into the wound, and she feels that warmth slip away with a sudden surge of agony.

 

It's enough to drive her to her feet.

 

She's off the ground and moving down the street with that same awkward gait as the walkers behind her. She clutches her side. Her vision fogging with every breath, and her sides aching with every step.

 

The familiar building that they had stayed in the night before comes into view. She knows the _For Lease_ building is empty. She knows there aren't any walkers there. It's safe – but it's also a tomb. She's wounded and hurting and she knows she needs _something._ Water. Medicine. Food. She can't even imagine what would go down if Merle returned to make sure she was dead.

 

_Steve's Pharmacy_ sits quietly nearby. It's a small building, hardly more than one or two rooms. Her previous run-in with the suburb pharmacy is still fresh in her mind, but it had been nearly three times the size of the small-town shop sitting invitingly in front of her. It would have more than the _For Lease_ building – it couldn't possibly have less.

 

The wide front windows give her a moment of pause. In Atlanta, even the shatter proof glass had eventually succumbed to the walkers. She doubts the small town was ever equipped for the possibility of violence. The windows would break in _minutes._ She runs along the side and towards the back. The door is unlocked, and she's pouring in and sliding the lock into place just as the first walker runs into the metal door. The first bang is then followed by the scratching and clawing and groaning of others.

 

The door doesn't strain. It doesn't stress. It groans from the pounding of their fists, but it does not yield. For a long moment she sways where she stands, trying desperately not to give in and die in the doorway. Slowly she turns and shuffles down the small maintenance hall, nearly tripping over a mop bucket. Her hands are dripping red on the ground. She' hardly knows what's happening – one moment she's barely existing, and the next she's in a small office with the door locked shut behind her.

 

It looks untouched.

 

She gives in. She sinks to her knees, a soft and breathy moan the only concession she allows. She grinds her teeth in anger as she remembers how he had left her behind – not dead, but on the brink. The walkers had been close enough that she had only just turned around and slipped the lock in when they were there, throwing themselves against the door.

 

He had just left her there – for _them –,_ because he had wanted more time.

 

“So close,” she whispers, and sits in silence for a long while.

 

Eventually her heart quiets, and she finds herself leaning back against the door as a slow warmth creeps over her eyes. It feels heavy – she doesn't fight it. She knows she's not safe, but she's as safe as she's going to be for a long time.

 

As she falls away, she remembers a tune. A sweet tune whistled into the evening sunset. It eases her into the dark, and she remembers a man with a kindness to his face, who had handed her the keys to his car and walked away. He hadn't had any time left. He had been on his last hour.

 

He had been the last goodness in the world.

 

The last kindness she had seen.

 

* * *

 

 

She had died once. It had been cold and quick and left her with a heart that hardly beat. Her heart hadn't stopped – but it had felt that way. It had felt like it just sat there in her chest and shriveled up to nothing.

 

They had taken her hands and pressed them into a folded flag, and they had told her that her sacrifice was honorable and she should be proud. Her mother had cried for her, but her father hadn't. He had simply looked her in the eye, and he had placed his hand over hers, and then his fingers had trembled and he had left.

 

_He tried, Cal. Remember that he always tried.  
_

* * *

 

 

She's dreaming of roadside explosions and fire and a man in a uniform who had tried so hard, but had never made it home. She's dreaming of a world long gone, and a father who worked so much he never saw his daughter. She's dreaming of a time when a man whistled a song to the wind, and took his last walk into the dying world.

 

And she dreams of mankind crumbling to ruin, but not _dying_ because there would always be people looking for _more time._ There would always be survivors amongst the refuse, piling high on the corpses of their comrades.

 

She starts awake when she hears a gunshot off in the distance. For a long and delirious moment she thinks that she's back in Atlanta listening to Merle fire a few rounds off a rooftop. Like a thunderclap, it cracks through silence and leaves a breathless anticipation.

 

The window overhead is dark – the moon is a brief lantern in the sky.

 

One breath. Two.

 

She blinks – there is a fuzziness in her brain and her eyes are flashing with lights. There is a man standing in the dark with only one arm, and he's laughing at her as he pushes her head into the ground.

 

' _cuffed me to a roof – left me to rot. Bunch of walkers snappin' at my ass... I did what I had to._

 

_I did what I had to._

 

The window is gold. Sunlight casting itself in through the small pane of glass. Cal blinks and stares into the dimly lit office space. The white walls are untouched. The table is covered in a slick film of dust. The door is still locked and silent at her back.

 

Her fingers brush through the layer of grime on the floor. She winces when she rips her raw hand from the ground, the dried blood peeling away to bleed anew.

 

It takes an age – or so it feels like-- to gather the strength to climb to her feet. She sways unsteadily on her feet. Her knife is in her hand; her fingers still curled around the hilt. A deep breath is all she takes to steady herself, and then she's tapping the tip against the door. _Tap-tap-tap._

 

Her eyes are shut, and her breath still. After a long moment of nothing she knows it's as safe as it'll be. The gunshot is still in her mind, though she can somewhat remember how far off it had sounded amongst the rabble of her thoughts and delusions. The walkers may have been drawn away towards it, but what of the people that fired the shot to begin with?

 

She unlocks the door and pushes into the hall. The back door is silent – it doesn't jump or groan under the barrage of undead. She turns away and moves towards the main room. The store is unperturbed. There isn't a walker that she can see. The sign in the front window leaves her with a chill – _Take what you need, and God Bless --,_ and she's eying the bell that had cleverly been taken down from the door by someone at some point.

 

The place isn't completely looted, but it is nearly picked clean. The shelves are clear; most items littering the ground. Somehow, amongst the rubble, she finds a roll of duct tape and gauze, and something to clean her raw skin. She winces when she turns the bottle over and sees the label – _hydrogen peroxide._ It'll hurt, and she knows it. Even without the peroxide it wasn't going to be a fun time.

 

She eases herself down onto the floor, trying not to groan as her side begins to throb or her scabs at her knees threaten to split. It takes a long moment afterward for her to regain her composure, and to swallow the pain.

 

The long shirt from Betty and Graham's is ruined. It's stained with blood – both her own and Merle's. She shrugs both it and the shirt she'd been wearing underneath off. The metal of the shelf is cool on her skin, and she feels a shiver along her spine.

 

She needs antibiotics.

 

The peroxide bottle is heavy in her hands, and she grits her teeth when the cap comes off and the smell hits her. She can remember those times as a kid: scraped knees and ruined elbows, she'd sit there and watch as her mother dabbed cotton balls at her cuts and bruises. It hurt. It always hurt. She usually cried.

 

But now there wasn't time for that. A person couldn't make a sound unless they were looking to die. And no matter what she may have thought, lying there in the middle of the road while the walkers drew closer, she was a survivor. Survivors didn't lay down and die. They did what they needed to do all for a moment.

  
For more time.

 

She grits her teeth, and looks down at her side. It slides down alongside four of her ribs, but it isn’t deep. The dirt of travel mixes with the stickiness of blood. She sits there staring at it – she tries not to think about what comes next.

 

She simply does it.

 

Her hands are dirty. There aren't a lot of options. She reaches out and pushes her fingertips against her skin, and then pulls. The wound opens – a gasping mouth of red --, and she pours the peroxide over her side.

 

She tries not to scream.

 

_I did what I had to._

 

* * *

 

 

She binds herself in duct tape and gauze. Her hands, the rawness of her arms, and her side. She even pulls on the long shirt and wraps the duct tape slowly around the open rips and tears. In the end her forearms are almost entirely covered. She briefly wonders if walkers could bite through the tape.

 

She eventually returns to the office. The door locks behind her and she settles in at the desk. A bottle of antibiotics spill out across the table and she picks up a few before slipping them into her mouth. She even manages to force down a few of the snacks she found left on the shelves.

 

And then she passes out.

 

When she wakes she stands and moves through the store, shoving what she might need into a plastic bag that she found. It crinkles and snaps and makes her wonder how soon it'll give her away to the walkers, but it doesn't matter because she has to leave. Convenience stores, pharmacies, and - god forbid – grocery stores were arenas of death. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone with a heart beat came walking through the door. If someone had taken down that bell; they had had every intention of coming back.

 

She's having a hard time moving. A bout of dizziness washes over her, and she clutches desperately at the shelves and waits for it to pass. She knows she has a concussion, and that no matter how she prepares herself she's going to struggle in the world until it passes.

 

She's thinking briefly about gathering what she can and heading over to the _For Lease_ building when she hears it – the low rumble of a car. It isn't much, hardly a whisper over the quiet day, but it's there and it makes her pause and look on down the main street. She sees it pulling up and over the horizon; a white truck. Death.

 

She feels the sudden and familiar rush of adrenaline as she backs away from the windows. The truck is close enough that she knows she wouldn't be able to get out the front door without them seeing her. She glances over her shoulder towards the back door, silent and still.

 

The front door squeaks open just as she ducks into the back hall.

 

“I just don't see how --”

 

“We leave some. If people take it – we know they're 'round.”

 

She can hear them – three sets of footsteps. They're in the store now, moving through the shelves and shoving stuff into backpacks. One man in a ratty denim vest comes into view. Her heart nearly explodes in her chest when he stops a shelf away from her hiding spot. He hardly paying attention as he shoves handfuls of loose items into an equally haggard backpack. “ _Again,_ I just don't see how--”

 

One of the other men hisses, “it ain't really your place to think now is it?”

 

_Denim-vest_ huffs, but his scathing companion ignores him – his attention is elsewhere.

 

“Hey, hey, hey. What're ya looking at, Kid?”

 

Denim-vest lets out a curse and follows after his distracted companion, mumbling quietly under his breath about being _unappreciated._

 

The distraction is all the prompting she needs to move to the door and unlock it, pushing it open with bated breath. The soft hiss of the hinges makes her pause, her heart hammering in her ears as she listens for any indication the three others heard her.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Is that---?”

 

“It’s still wet.”

 

Silence.

 

She feels a sudden chill in her gut; a deep cold that flourishes in the pit of her stomach. She knows what they've found, and she berates herself for her own stupidity. She hadn't cleaned up the spilled peroxide, the bloodied gauze, the scraps of duct tape.

 

She can't see them, but the silence that follows is enough. They don't make a sound, they don't say a word. She knows they're looking for her.

 

She doesn't wait to see if they'll find her. She turns and edges through the door, closing it softly behind her. The alley is empty, there are no walkers in sight. She's hardly taken a step when the door creaks open behind her. She whirls around, eyes wide as she meets the eye of an equally surprised man.

 

No, she corrects herself, a kid. Hardly more than twenty. He's staring at her from the back door of the Pharmacy, eyes wide and reeling.

 

A long moment passes.

 

And then he's yelling out to the others, and she's running as fast as she can.

 

“ _I got her!”_

 

She can hear the rest of them shooting out of the pharmacy; yelling and hollering like a bunch of idiots. The town is echoing with their cries. The boy is chasing her on foot. He's yelling and _whooping_ and she feels a deep panic when the roar of their truck joins his victory cry. She slips on the pavement as she rounds the corner of the alley and lunges down the street – the boy takes a tumble behind her, cursing as he awkwardly regains his footing.

 

She doesn't know where to go, she doesn't know where is safe. There are no options – run or die.

 

She runs.

 

She runs for the edge of town, legs pumping and side aching and knees screaming. Her plastic bag is swinging wildly in one hand, and her knife is ready at her thigh.

 

The truck squeals around the corner of the block, roaring behind them as the driver pushes on the gas. The boy shrieks and cries out, his joy in the chase sending a sliver of fear down her spine.

 

These people weren't looking for more time.

 

The houses fall away, the land flattens. She's running down an open stretch of road, and she knows it's stupid. It’s the stupidest thing she’s ever done.

 

The treeline is coming into view. She can hear the truck getting closer. The boy whistles sharply in her ear as he gains ground. They're not firing any shots.

 

They're just chasing her down.

 

She knows it's a long shot. She's hobbled by injury. Her vision is twisting and turning with every step, and she can feel the wound in her side aching with a fire. She thinks her lungs might explode; maybe her heart too. She hopes for that sort of mercy – if they're going to catch her, let her die quickly.

 

The boy's fingers are curling into the collar of her shirt. She doesn't hesitate. She doesn't beg. The knife is still in the sheath, but the plastic bag is just as useful. It catches him in the head, and he lets go and falls back with a cry. She nearly stumbles over, but she can't – she doesn't let herself.

 

She runs away from the boy. The truck passes him. She doesn't look over her shoulder. She doesn't dare. She doesn't look back when she finally rushes past the treeline and into the coolness of the woods. She doesn't look back when she can hear the truck squealing to a stop, or as they get out of the car and yell down from the road.

 

“Better keep on running, girl!”

 

She moves through the bushes, and the forest welcomes her.

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn't stop. Her vision is blurry; nausea and dizziness are her constant companions. Sometimes she stumbles when the world tilts, or she swallows hard when her throat bubbles. They're more noticeable now that the adrenaline of her pursuit has long worn away. She feels weak, but she can't stop.

 

Despite everything, she still knows silence is key – and she also knows even an amateur tracker would be able to spot her haphazard tracks through the woods. She glances over her shoulder more often than not, feeling the sharp prickling fear of pursuit. Walkers were one thing, but people are another. The men at the pharmacy hadn't been looking for more time; there was something more sinister about their pursuit and their shouted threat as she disappeared into the trees.

 

Even though the world tilts and spins at random intervals, she still manages to keep in a relatively straight line. She eventually wades into a shin high creek, uncaring of the water spilling into her boots. She thinks only of the water consuming her footprints, eating away any trace of her. She is made invisible by nature.

 

She moves with the current; even shin high, the flow makes a difference. She doesn't tire out as fast, and she makes good time despite the moments she almost spills into the water. The flat and level ground on either side of the creek rolls up, rearing into a high and rocky gorge. A few hundred meters later she's standing there, staring down at the most unlikely thing she would have ever thought to see in the woods.

 

A doll.

 

It's not real, she tells herself.

 

She tries to blink it away. It's dirty and worn and wet, and surely must be something she's imagining as no child should be out _here._ She stoops down, unsure if she should grab it.

 

A day ago she would have told herself to leave and never think of the doll again, but after Merle she can’t think clearly. She'd thinks about things she doesn’t want to think about; the kind of things she had hoped she'd forget. Things a person couldn't take with them into the new world, not unless they wanted to _suffer._

 

And the doll was the sort of thing that could put a fire in a person – the kind of fire that would extinguish will, and consume happiness, and eat the very existence of hope. Not a fire burning brightly in the night, but one that raged into the dying of the day and swallowed a world.

 

She fails at compartmentalizing.

 

She grabs the doll and stares down at it. It drips into the stream. There is a stain on the hem of the dress, and it isn't hard to tell that it's blood. She grits her teeth and staggers to her feet. She doesn't know why she does it, but she doesn't discard the doll. As she moves further down the stream she tucks it away in the bag, and she hopes that the little girl -- whoever she is, wherever she is -- is safe and sound.

 

She doesn't know how long she walks, but eventually the gorge falls away to a small incline. She clambers out onto the far bank and takes a moment to empty her boots and ring out her socks.

 

She wanders on, occasionally shutting her eyes and leaning against a tree when the dizziness makes the world spin and dance around her. Every so often she stumbles to her knees, her silence punctuated by the barest breath of defeat – and then a soft groan as she rises to her feet once more.

 

Sometimes she sees things. Flashes of a world long gone. Of a folded flag being pressed into her hands, and a white gravestone standing alongside hundreds more. Sometimes she sees things like the bustling streets of Atlanta – pumping with life. Sometimes she sees her mother and her father – and at the edge, a faceless little girl holding the soggy doll.

 

On occasion she is confused, a shadow dancing at the edge of her vision makes her turn around – and then fall. Sometimes she ignores it. Sometimes she rubs at her eyes and pinches her skin to force herself into wakefulness.

 

A tree offers her support. She leans against it and takes a deep breath. The forest is quiet. The occasional bird trills softly; the wind breathes amongst the leaves. As she pushes aside the tilting sensation, she listens for the sound of walkers or men.

 

Cal's knife hand twitches, and she feels the world shift uncomfortably the longer she stands still. She lifts a shaky hand to wipe away the sweat speckling her forehead. She takes a step forward and falls to her knees, her vision dancing.

 

For a long moment she sits there and stares up at the canopy overhead. There is gold light spilling through the leaves, and the small drops of warmth on her skin are peculiar against the coolness of the wood. The trees frowns down at her. The familiar lethargy of the concussion returns. She feels like laying down and never getting up – it would be simple and easy.

 

_I'll always try...._

 

The bag in her hand grows heavier, and she imagines the doll turning to stone. How heavy would it have to be before she could no longer carry it?

 

It takes something in her – something that she hadn't known she had until the whole world went to shit -- to get up and struggle to her feet.

 

She has no idea where she's going. She only knows that she needs to get away from the town – away from those men. For a moment she fancies finding a house somewhere -- like she had planned back when she decided to leave Merle -- and settle in for as long as she can.

 

The bag crinkles in her hand. Her feet scuff along the ground. She's pressing herself against a tree and trying to push aside a wave of dizziness when she hears it – the barest breath of air behind her. She doesn't move at first; she doesn't even breathe. Her own heart is shocked to stillness. It's not a walker; there isn't a raspy moan or sudden clicking of teeth; there isn't a swirl of rot or a taste of sweet grit at the back of her throat.

 

Cal knows quiet. She knows silence. She knows when someone is good at it, and she knows when they're not. If it was a person behind her, she knows it's endgame. It if it's an animal; it isn't.

 

The bag slithers to the ground. Her knife is in her hand. She whirls around and touches the edge of the knife to a throat.

 

The tip of a crossbow bolt touches her forehead.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their support, whether it be through kudos or comments. It means a lot to see people take the time to let me know what you think, and to help bring this story to people's attention. Thanks so much!  
> xo qG


	7. Chapter 7

 

The new world has no time for noise, and so a quiet stretches on and into the deep of the wood. There is a stillness; a moment of breathlessness as uncertainty winds about them. There is a man holding a crossbow to her head, and she holds a buck knife to his throat in kind.

 

The bolt is electric. The knife is like fire.

 

They stand there, arms aching as time stretches on past comprehending. There is an intensity in the air; the sort of energy that preludes a lightning storm – something that will be quiet and deadly and beautiful. Neither moves, neither yields – they stand locked in the forest, waiting.

 

“-- the hell?”

 

There had been a hesitation in his eyes in that first moment, a slight disbelief that she was real. Now he's looking her evenly in the eye, like he's looking for something that he's not sure he'll find. She stares back defiantly, her lips curled in a snarl.

 

There is a spike of fear. A tangible, real thing that she imagines her mother and father never thought she'd feel – not in this lifetime. It's thick and viscous and she wants to swallow it, but she can't – not now, not yet; that would be conceding too much. Instead she sets it back, tucking it away and burying it. A coolness settles over her; a calm as she remembers the police man whispering to her, _don't be afraid._

 

And suddenly the cop is replaced by her father. He's whistling that sweet tune – laughter and tears – into the setting sun. It's her father murmuring to her in the woods, standing off to the side even as the man presses the bolt hard enough to her forehead to draw a fleck of blood.

 

“ _Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell.”_ Words her father once whispered into the night as he hovered over old memories. She had been young, and had hidden around the corner in her night gown as her father murmured himself to sleep. She'd never asked him about it.

 

He was right. The cop was right. Don't be afraid. With his crossbow pressed to her head, she had had nothing to lose -- she didn't have a lot of options; she was pretty much dead already. Do or die. Fight like hell, or give up and die. There wasn't time for fear.

 

“ _Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell.”_

 

They're still standing there, knife to throat and bow to brow.

 

“'The hell you come from?” The man growls.

 

She doesn't know who he is, and she doesn't want to. She stares him in the eye, and she sways and she blinks and she fights back the thick and sour flavour creeping onto her tongue. She stands with his bow to her forehead, and she feels the world tilting back and forth. She feels the pulse of his heart through the knife, beating in rhythm with the throbbing of her side.

 

His hands don't shake. Not like those virginal murderers with their shaking hands and shaking guns. They'd been easy to navigate; their fear had been real, and new.

 

His hands don't shake, and she knows it might not work. She might be tossing her life away, but she doesn't care. If he pulls the trigger she won't have room to care or think or breathe. If it doesn't work, than she's no better off than she is now.

 

And if it does...--

 

“Do it,” she says. “It'll be the easiest thing you've ever done.”

 

“What the _fuck?”_

 

The air thickens. He hesitates and blinks, and she's knocking the bow away and watching as the arrow looses and flies off into the woods. The man curses and swings back towards her, but she's turning and stumbling away. She had been fast once, when her legs weren't scabbed and her head wasn't foggy. She struggles now, her body failing her as she slips away into the trees.

 

She doesn't get far; the sharp sting of her aching side and the lancing pain in her knees slows her down. Her head is reeling. Every step she takes is disjointed and uncertain, and eventually she stumbles forward into the dirt. The knife falls from her hand, and it lays useless amongst the leaves and earth.

 

The softest gasp leaves her lips. She stays there, a deep weariness settling into her bones. She would laugh if she had the energy; her pathetic escape attempt foiled by her own wayward feet. The sky, she thinks, her feet had been reaching for the sky.

 

The wood offers a hush of air; the barest gasp of wind as something moves through the trees. She lies amongst the withered leaves and the earth roused by her fall. She thinks of her father, and his words in the dark of night. He had always tried to come back to her.

 

For the first time since the beginning, she allows herself to wonder if he had survived this new world. If he had lived and fought like hell.

 

She feels a sudden whoosh of air choke from her lips: now is not the time _._ It's never the time, she thinks. There is never time to sit and wonder and think.

 

She's pushing the tangent aside, wondering how a bump to the head could sidetrack her so effectively, when the soft crinkling of her bag catches her attention. Cal blinks and reaches for where she had left it, not wanting him to find her because of a _god damned plastic bag._ Her fingers skim across earth and leaves and _nothing._

 

Her blood chills, and she feels a sudden rush as she realizes that she had forgotten the bag.

 

She scrambles for the knife and whirls around, her body low and ready. She looks like an animal; feral and dangerous.

 

The man is there, crossbow loaded and tucked into his arm.

 

“I don't want any trouble,” Cal says.

 

“Helluva thing to want with that stunt you pulled back there,” he growls.

 

“Not a lot of options with an arrow to my head,” her voice is cracking, breaking. She wipes at her eyes and swallows her nausea.

 

“'Thought you were a walker.”

 

He's angry. She can tell by the whitening of his knuckles, the grinding of his teeth – his lips thin and his eyes narrow and he looks like some wild dog ready to bite into her. She thinks briefly of a wolf stilling in the quiet of winter; there is nothing but intensity and hunger in a landscape rich with silence.

 

She knows she's treading on thin ice. She can feel it crumbling beneath her. “I don't want any trouble,” she repeats.

 

She can feel the air changing and shifting – like a storm brewing at the edge of the sky. She waits, her fingers tightening around the knife.

 

“Where'd you find the doll?”

 

She blinks.

 

The storm comes to a head.

 

“Where the hell d’you find the doll?!” He takes a step forward. It's enough to have her slinking back with a snarl on her face and the knife raised.

 

“What are you talking about?” she can feel a dread that coils around her stomach. It is a stout fear, one that isn't for herself, but for someone she hasn't seen, someone she has never spoken to. It was dread for someone who had lost her doll in the woods and was now being _hunted._ She remembers the men yelling and hollering and _whooping_ behind her. They hadn't let loose a single shot – they hadn't wanted her dead.

 

_They hadn't wanted her dead._

 

He isn't put off by her response, if anything it makes him angrier. The crinkling bag is discarded at her feet, and she dares a cursory glance at the doll he clutches in his free hand. It stares back at her, blond hair dishevelled and dirtied and soggy. The little dirty spot on it gives her a sense of morbid hope – of a little girl free of any sick perversions of the new world. That treacherous thought nearly makes her gag.

 

“This jog your memory?”

 

She looks at it, but she doesn't say anything. She stares at the doll with its stitched mouth and button eyes. Somewhere in the woods, alive or dead, there was a little girl without her doll – a doll that could lead this man right to her.

 

She couldn't have that.

 

Cal feels disquiet - it's like air rushing past her ears as she runs from a group of men. A different fear than death; one that sits in a darker place than even the cool and calm of her father's words can reach. She feels a tightening between her legs, like her body is trying to hide within itself at the mere thought of it: _rape._

 

She hopes that little girl is far from here.

 

Her knuckles are white, her fingers rigid around the hilt of the knife. “Who is she to you?” she asks, her voice low and reaching. She stares at the doll -- she can't look away. “I'm not leading you to her. Not if you're going to hurt her...”

 

He is snarling, his finger tightening on the trigger. “Y'know where she is?”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“I ain't goin' to hurt her.”

 

She stares at him, and she repeats herself, “ _who_ is she to you?”

 

He is quiet in reply. He's staring at the doll, his thumb tracing over the eyes and hair and the smudge. He takes a step back. It's as he's staring at the doll that she sees the flower.

 

It's smiling at her. A wide and happy face peaking out from his back pocket. She would have never seen it if he hadn't moved. She would have never seen the petals as white as snow, as pure and untainted as any child's life ought to be. She would never have seen the flower, and felt the sharp and dashing ache of beauty.

 

Something simple, and _re_ _al._

 

Something that wasn't looking for more time.

 

Something she never would have thought to see in a world of death and hate and suffering.

 

She looks at him, at the remorse in his eyes. It's a hope so deeply interwoven with pain that she doesn't quite know what to think.

 

Suddenly the crossbow is on her again, and his hope and pain is schooled and tucked away.

 

“She's just a lil' girl – I'm tryin' to get her back home,” his voice is so low that she almost doesn't hear him.

 

“Is that flower for her?”

 

He shakes his head, “ain't none of your business.”

 

“You got a group?” He doesn't say anything. “You're too clean to be on your own.”

 

He scoffs, “observant.”

 

She doesn't say anything. For a long moment they stare at one another, locked in their quiet standoff. “You with the group in town?” She eventually asks, and she watches the brief flash of confusion on his face.

 

“What group?”

 

She bites at her lip and considers him. “How long ago that little girl go missing?” When he doesn't say anything she lowers her knife. She casts one last glance at the flower. “You best find her,” she whispers,“before they do.”

 

“ _You_ best tell _me_ where you found the doll then.” The crossbow doesn't drop. His words are more threat than request. She can feel that intensity from him again – that hungry, angry silence that murmurs of a primeval animal slouching through a wintery wood.

 

There is a need in his voice; something that isn't dark and twisted. It's hope and pain and recompense, and it makes her hesitate.

 

“I'll show you,” she says, sheathing the knife.

 

It is only then that his crossbow lowers.

 

She collects the bag, and he keeps the doll. They walk side by side. Neither lets the other walk more than a foot behind them. The suspicion in the air is thick enough that Cal doesn't remove her hand from her sheathed knife nor does she take her eyes off him or his bow. On occasion she loses her footing and stumbles, and he's always there, waiting for her to figure it out. He never offers her help; he simply watches as she holds her hand to her head and rubs the dizziness from her eyes.

 

When she lurches behind a tree to dry-heave into the dirt, he stops and waits. “You bit?” he asks.

 

Cal stands up and runs her hand across her forehead. “No.” He looks at her torn up hands and bloodied shirt. She sighs. “Not every danger in the new world is dead.”

 

“The group from town?”

 

“No,” she whispers, “someone else.”

 

He doesn't pry. They walk on into the silence of the woods until they're wading into the small creek. He doesn't struggle against the current, but Cal finds herself tiring as the shin-high waters push eagerly at her legs. She slips several times, effectively soaking her dirtied pants.

 

He doesn't look at her. He only waits and looks into the trees flanking the creek – eventually the gorge rises around them, and he casts his eyes as high along the cliffs as he can.

 

“She'da have to been following the creek at some point. Pro'ly only landmark she'd a thought of.” He calls a name out suddenly, loud, and clear, and reverberating through the trees like a sudden crack of thunder. It shatters the silence, and Cal stands beside him with wide eyes, staring off into the trees for any sign of _anything._

 

“ _Sophia?”_ She whispers the name.

 

“Yeah,” he says.

 

They walk on a bit further before she motions to the small point bar of the creek. The sandy bank is relatively unscathed save for her own slight foot prints and the spot in which she'd recovered the doll.

 

He regards her with a careful eye before he moves past her. He doesn't turn his back to her, and his crossbow lounges almost lazily in his arms. She stands off to the side, one hand curled about the hilt of the knife, and the other pinching the handles of the grocery bag.

 

“Y'sure this is the spot?”

 

She looks at him sharply. He isn't looking at her, but out and across the water to the banks rising on either side. There is a small area he focuses on intently. “Yeah,” Cal murmurs.

 

He considers her as he pulls the flower from his belt. The way in which he holds it makes her breath tighten in her throat. He hands it to her, and stares at it thoughtfully.

 

“Keep it safe,” are the only words he offers before he turns and wades further into the water. As he moves away she gets the impression that everything he does is calculating – every action carefully plotted. This was as much a test as anything.

 

She follows him with her eyes as he moves through the water. At one point he sinks up to his belly – he lifts his crossbow overhead and continues on. She looks down at the flower; it would have been ruined if he'd kept it; it would have washed away and never been seen again.

 

Her hand falls away from her knife.

 

“Too silty,” he mutters. “Water washed 'way any tracks.”

 

There are questions she wants to ask, but she refrains. Instead she stands within the churning waters of the creek and watches him, and the darkening wood that surrounds them. The sun is setting, the shadows are stretching. The air is no longer thick with heat, but rather the coolness of the coming night. It would be dark in an hour.

 

She is swaying. Her vision is blurring. She lifts a hand to rub at her temple. When she blinks away the dizziness, she meets his gaze from across the creek bed.

 

“How'd it happen?” He's eyeing her hands, the sweat on her brow, the long slash in the side of her shirt. She can see the distrust in his eyes; he's still thinking about whether or not she's bitten. She can't blame him; she looks like shit.

 

“Just someone looking for more time,” she mutters. The flower is suddenly heavy in her hand. Heavy enough that her arm aches. Like the doll, it feels as if it's turned to stone.

 

She rubs at her eyes.

 

For a long moment she considers what she needs to do to survive. She'd done well on her own, but now that she was stumbling through the woods, succumbing to the bitter sting of infection and the reeling sickness of a concussion, her priorities are changing. If she had her way she'd find a hole to curl up in, but her father is there in her mind. Her father, and the cop and his sweet tune, and the woman and her screaming child. _I'll always try,_ they're whispering.

 

She thinks, she considers. She eyes the white flower tucked so carefully into her duct taped, gauze-wrapped, and _throbbing_ hand. It's the one beautiful thing she has seen in what feels like an age.

 

“Is she your daughter?”

 

He's poking around a few bushes hugging close to the waterfront. When he hears her he scoffs, “Nah.”

 

“Sweet kid?”

 

“She ain't bad,” he mutters with a shrug, eyes still searching the ground.

 

“A lot of kids in your group?”

 

He glances at her warily, like he isn't sure whether he shoulder answer or not – it doesn't matter though, the protective look on his face says enough.

 

It's in that moment she makes a decision.

 

“Those men... from town. You don't want them finding that little girl. I can help you...” She's no hero, she'd be the first to admit that, but there were things in the world that couldn't be ignored. Somewhere in the woods there was a lost little girl; somewhere in the woods there was a group of monsters, of men with no good intentions. And this man – this rough and pensive and hopeful man - had somewhere safe and warm to rest.

 

She'd been alone so long; she'd pushed aside so much. The soggy doll sitting at his hip, the throbbing in her side, the swaying of the trees and earth and sky – they make the choice for her.

 

“I can help you find her,” she says. “I can help you protect her from them.”

 

He's quiet for a long moment, the indecision is clear in his eyes – eventually he nods. “What's your name?”

 

“Cal,” she says.

 

“Daryl.”  
  



	8. Chapter 8

The sun is low in the sky. The woods grow darker and shadows go deeper.

 

He takes the flower and tucks it back in his pocket. The doll sags in his belt loop beside it, a stark contrast to the silvered petals. For a long moment afterwards he regards her, almost as if he's still mulling over her proposal to help. His eyes move to her hands, and brush across the pebbled sweat on her brow; he takes in the long tear in her shirt, and the bloody mess of her knees.

 

“C'mon. Can't do shit in the dark,” he doesn't wait. He turns and walks away into the dying light, and she follows him silently. The only sound between them is the rustling of the plastic bag. The forest is quiet overhead and underfoot; they pass through as hardly more than a breath of wind.

 

At one point, she leans against a tree to catch her breath. He continues on, muttering over his shoulder that _he ain't got all day._ She pushes after him.

 

Despite her injuries and occasional missteps, he notices how careful she is; how she doesn't let her guard down. She walks behind him, slowly and quietly, listening to the world that surrounds them. It's the stillness of a wild animal; something feral and unsure and looking to survive. He knows everything has gone to shit, and there was no room for noise in the new world, but he wouldn't lie and say it didn't unnerve him, because it did.

 

She was too quiet to trust.

 

When they come to a barb wire fence, he steps on the bottom strand and pulls on the top wire. She ducks through and holds it in turn, and they stalk off across a stretch of empty grasslands. Daryl slings his crossbow across his shoulder, the calm and ease putting her more on edge. She doesn't know the last time she saw more than a handful of people together – he wasn't forthcoming with numbers, but the fact that he was welcoming her at all made her wary that it was more than a few. Her hand itches for her knife.

 

They crest a small hill, and then descend towards a brightly lit farmhouse. The sight of it is enough to make her hesitate; the sight of it is enough to make her breath leave her chest. It was both a fierce sight of a world long gone, and a quiet doom in the night. The light would attract walkers and other dangers, she thinks, it would have to.

 

They weren't blind.

 

When she moves up to his side he casts her a cursory glance before looking away. “You have trouble with walkers seeing the light?” She asks.

 

He doesn't look at her, “ain't been here long.”

 

She doesn't say anything else.

 

* * *

 

 

He has relatively good eyesight, it's one of the reasons he volunteers for watch so often. He enjoys the solitude and quiet as he stares out across the land. He isn't as young as he used to be, so his eyes make up for the fact his body isn't quite as spry or able.

 

He sees a lot on watch – not necessarily things he wants to or should, but things that matter. Sometimes it's little things that catch his eye, and sometimes it's the big.

 

Dale watches Glenn and Maggie, and the tension between them; he watches Rick and Hershel, as they sort out the differences in their worlds; he listens as Carol bustles about in the RV, and as T-Dog pushes something around in a frying pan over the fire. He glances out towards the stables, and out towards the woods. It's as he's glancing towards the treeline that he starts.

 

Daryl is moving through the grass, and _someone_ is with him.

 

Dale stands up from the chair, and he stares out across the field. He doesn't need to call out, the others are noticing. T-Dog is moving, the pan set aside from the fire and bat already in hand. Rick and Hershel are walking down from the house.

 

Carol is quiet in the RV.

 

It's when he sees Shane rumbling out from _somewhere,_ and moving swiftly off after Rick that Dale crawls down from the RV. He trusts Rick. He knows the man will do as right as he can, but Shane isn't Rick. Shane is different.

 

Shane is the new world; chaos incarnate.

 

* * *

 

 

There are horses. She can see them grazing out behind the house. There are cattle whipping their long tails at their fly speckled hides, and an assortment of hens clucking away at one another in a coop.

 

“You have animals?”

 

“Wouldn't be much of a farm without 'em,” Daryl grumbles.

 

The house is large, untouched. It isn't dusty or boarded up or in any way suffering. It sits apart from the handful of service buildings and sheds, but within a short distance of a makeshift camp tucked amongst a cluster of tired trees. There is a man sitting atop an old RV, and as they clamber through one last fence, he rises from his chair and eases himself down from the roof of the vehicle. The rifle slung across his back nearly makes her hesitate.

 

“Stay beside me,” Daryl grouses.

 

Someone is calling out. Another voice responds. People are moving out from the shadowed camp, and the grand house – more people than she has seen in ages. A smaller group begins to move towards them. They're nothing more than brief shadows in the dusk, swaying to and fro as her vision blurs and sputters.

 

As they draw nearer, she recognizes the uniform and badge of a policeman. She would relax if not for the man behind him. The policeman marches, but the other man _storms._ He reminds her of Merle; tempestuous and angry.

 

They stop a few feet away. Another large man stands back another ten feet, beside him is an older man in a bucket hat. The rifle is still slung across his shoulder, and his hands up as if it is the only reassurance he can offer – and it is. It was the only reassuring thing in this situation.

 

“Who the hell is this, Daryl?” The angry man's voice cracks across the sky. “You can't jus' be leadin' wilds things back to us--”

 

“Daryl?” The policeman's voice is careful and controlled. Daryl doesn't reply, instead he pulls the doll from his belt loop. There is a moment of hesitation; there is a moment in which no one speaks. The two other men move closer, and it's the oldest man with the bucket hat that speaks their collective surprise.

 

“Sophia's doll?”

 

“Where'd you find this?” The policeman jaw is tense. His temples throb as he grinds his teeth. His eyes never settle, they flash between Cal and Daryl and the doll.

 

Daryl jerks his chin towards her, “she found it.”

 

When they all turn to look at her, she lifts her chin.

 

“And you are?” The policeman asks.

 

“Cal.”

 

“Rick,” he supplies, pressing his hand against his chest. “This is Dale, T-Dog, and Shane.”

 

She eyes each of the men he indicates. The last one, the tempestuous one that looks like a storm cloud – Shane --, she doesn't look him in the eye, but rather side eyes the hand he has at his hip, sitting wistfully at his empty holster.

 

That's when she notices that Rick's holster is also empty. Dale is the only one with a gun.

 

“You know where the little girl is?” Rick's voice grounds her back in the present, and she looks at him.

 

She doesn't answer right away. She stares him in the eye. There is a part of her that wants to believe that she'll be safe around these people, but there is another part that is whispering in the dark, telling her to turn and run and _get out._ Cal studies Rick, her jaw as tense as his. Her eyes cool with consideration. “That badge hold any meaning anymore?” She asks.

 

Rick's jaw works. “It can.”

 

There are words left unsaid, but the meaning translates well enough.

 

_It depends on you._ He doesn't need to say it. He doesn't need to say it because it is clearly writ upon his face. There is warning there, but also a faint hope; he's offering her something, something that can only be decided by her actions or lack thereof.

 

“I don't know where she is,” she says. “But I can help you.”

 

Rick is staring at her hard. “You bit?” He asks, indicating her hands.

 

“No,” she replies.

 

Shane is suddenly tugging at Rick's shoulder, and he's pulling him away and towards Dale and T-Dog. Daryl glances at Cal before he follows them. They stand hardly more than twenty feet away. She watches and waits.

 

The world tilts and sways.

 

She doesn't want to be here. She wants to run and get away and live alone, but she can't. She has no where to go.

 

* * *

 

 

“You jus' let her follow you back, man? You think that's the right idea?” Shane's tone is chastising, like he's talking to a child. Daryl bristles, but Rick is holding a hand out between the two men. “We can't just pick up any stray we find on the side of the road and--”

 

“Shane. She's here. Now.” Rick stares at Shane as the other man's jaw tenses. A silence stretches between them until Dale speaks up.

 

“She found Sophia's doll? Where?”

 

“Jus' out past a ridge – middle of the creek. Jus' sitting there.”

 

“You trust her?” T-Dog asks.

 

“Nah,” Daryl shakes his head. “But she took me there. Saw the spot with my own eyes.”

 

Silence sits between the four of them. Occasionally one of them glances towards Cal swaying out in the tall grasses. She's looking out across the land towards the house, and then behind her towards the trees. Occasionally she sweeps her eyes over them, but it is a brief and fleeting thing.

 

“You think she lied? You think she might be bit?” T-Dog asks. They all turn to regard her, the way she sways and how she lifts a shaky hand to wipe at her brow. The duct tape wrapped around her arms and hands and the bloody stained hole of her shirt leaves them all second guessing, wondering and thinking the worst.

 

“Even if she's not--”

 

“I don't know,” Rick speaks over Shane and shoots the other man a glance. “But that's a risk we can't afford.”

 

“We can't just turn her away,” Dale says.

 

Shane lets out a low laugh, “yeah we can, man.”

 

“I don't know about you, but I couldn't live with myself knowing we sent someone off down the road – especially someone who could be seriously injured--”

 

“She could be _seriously bit_ for all we know--”

 

“Said she got it in rough with some people,” Daryl glances back and forth between Rick and the rest. “And she said somethin' 'bout a group in _town.”_

 

Everyone stops. They regard Daryl, and mull over his newest revelation. A chill races through them all. The memory of the Vatos is there; that harsh reality that people had turned to a cruelty in their time of need. The Vatos had, in the end, been of a kinder sort, but the potential had been there.

 

“Another group?” T-Dog swallows.

 

Daryl shrugs and sticks a piece of grass stalk in his mouth. “She didn't say much else.”

 

Rick is staring out across the field towards the woman. The indecision is clear on his face.

 

“Rick,” Shane jerks his head towards Hershel. The older man makes his way down from the house, his brows furrowed thoughtfully. As he joins them, Shane directs his attention to the older man, “you ever hear 'bout another group around town?”

 

Hershel glances between Shane and Rick, “Maggie would be the one to speak to about that--”

 

“I'm asking you, man.”

 

“Shane,” Rick growls out.

 

“Maybe we can talk to _her_ about it?” Dale's pleading voice breaks the group's focus. “She might be more inclined to tell us more about this group if we _help_ her.”

 

Rick looks to Hershel, “it's _your_ farm. I'm not going to invite someone onto it without your say.”

 

Hershel is quiet for a moment as he watches her. He notices the way she sways, and how she rubs at her eyes and head. “She's sick?”

 

“Looks like she could use a doctor,” Daryl rasps.

 

Hershel nods, “Patricia and I'll take a look at her.”

 

Daryl tucks the doll back into his belt. “We sure 'bout this?”

 

Rick nods, “we'll keep an eye on her. If she's bit, she ain't got long. If she ain't, and she's with the others, we'll deal with it--”

 

Dale blinks at him incredulously, “deal with it?”

 

Rick's jaw tenses and he nods. “Remember the Vatos?” The others go quiet. “We can't let that happen here.”

 

* * *

 

 

The house is like something from an age long past. It shines with life. The older man, Hershel Greene as he introduces himself, explains that the property is his. The small makeshift campsite outside the front door is where the majority sleep, save for the few who are in some way associated with him and his family.

 

“It's beautiful,” she whispers. And she means it.

 

The rest of the men depart; Dale climbs back atop the old RV with his rifle; Shane stalks off into the trees; T-Dog resumes the slow and methodical preparation of dinner; and Daryl moves towards the RV with that white flower in one hand and a beer bottle in the other.

 

Hershel ushers her into the house. Rick is the only one that comes with them. There is a small room tucked off near the kitchen – an office turned guest room. The small bed in the corner is the first she's seen in what feels like years. She sits down on it with a sigh as Hershel begins to unwrap her hands.

 

“How'd it happen?” Rick asks from where he stands just inside the door.

 

“Someone looking for more time.”

 

“You're going to have to give me more than that.”

 

She glances at him sharply. There is an intensity in the way he's looking at her – something she imagines he picked up as a cop. A few weeks ago she would have told him to fuck off, but she needed these people. She needed to know what kind of people they were, and she needed the help they offered.

 

“A man wanted my pack. He took it.”

 

“He from the group in town?”

 

“No,” she says. “We'd been together for a few days.”

 

It feels weird, she thinks, to talk about it. She had never had anyone else, she had dealt with everything up until this point by herself. Even when she'd been pistol whipped she'd managed to crawl into a closet alone, by _herself._ She'd never had someone to talk to, she'd never had someone to clean her wounds or share her fears.

 

“Tell me 'bout the group you ran into.”

 

She grits her teeth as the duct tape catches on the edge of her wound. “Couple of guys, mentioned something about some others.”

 

“Friendlies?”

 

She shakes her head, “no.”

 

Hershel pulls the gauze free from her hands, and interrupts Rick's next question. “No bites, but antibiotics wouldn't hurt. You've got a bit of an infection.”

 

He cleans and wraps her hands. She sits through it with gritted teeth and watchful eyes. She doesn't protest; she doesn't flinch or pull away. Rick watches.

 

“Not a lot we can do for a concussion,” Hershel says. “Except to keep you hydrated and keep you off your feet.”  
  
She meets Rick's eye. It's a brief thing; his eyes are blazing with indecision, judgement. She just needs more time; her best bet is with these people. Her only value was in what she could give. “I can't do that,” she turns to Hershel, “I'd like to help look for the little girl --”

 

“One day off your feet will do you good--”

 

“No, it's fine--”

 

“No,” Rick interrupts. “One day will do you right. Daryl told us you were havin' trouble in the woods.”

 

A silence descends between them, there is a tension that leaves the room as if both release their breath. She considers his words with care: he had said the right thing. And he, in turn, considers the same of her.   
  


Cal nods, and then she's wincing as Hershel pushes back the fold of her shirt and stares incredulously at her patch work. She knows it isn't anything spectacular. She'd used too little gauze and too much duct tape.

 

Rick's eyes round when he catches sight of the wound, and he's suddenly there at her side staring her in the eye. His face is tight with disbelief and suspicion.

 

“That a bite?”

 

She feels like a caged animal that they're poking with a stick. Like something that shouldn't be amongst civilized men. “No – it isn't,” she hisses. “It's a knife wound.”

 

“Can you fetch Patricia please?” Hershel asks.

 

Rick nods stiffly and moves from the room. He catches Cal’s eye as he rounds the corner, his expression blank.

 

Moments later a long haired woman enters the room and is introduced as Patricia. She's quiet as she helps Hershel, and Cal finds herself relaxing as the older man and woman help her from her shirt. She bites her lip when they pull the tape from her side, revealing the wound sliding along her ribs.

 

“You're lucky,” Hershel says. Cal snorts. “If the angle had been much different, the knife would have gone _a lot_ deeper.” A silence descends as they work. Patricia doesn't say anything. Hershel murmurs and dabs at the wound with a solution -- it stings. “You're going to need stitches,” he says.

 

“Do it,” she murmurs to them.

 

Afterwards, she lay gasping into the sheets of the bed. Her skin is slick with sweat, and her side throbs from beneath her new bandages. Hershel uses duct tape to tape down the gauze, and he explains that it'll hold up better than the regular hospital tape.

 

Hershel leaves, but Patricia stays and checks her over. By the end, Cal is nothing more than a naked, shivering child in a bed with the sheets tucked up around her chin. A sip of water and a few antibiotics slip past her lips.

 

She's left alone in the bright room; she can hear Rick or someone else standing outside of her door. She can hear the others' whispering in the dark talking amongst themselves.

 

She doesn't sleep; not until the house settles into quiet, and the moon shines in through the window, and the whispering and murmuring from other rooms falls to silence.

 

Not until the light falls away, and she stares up into the dark.

 

And then she sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 

They move forward when he exits the house. They descend into silence like a solemn court. One by one they raise their eyes to him standing at the top of stoop with a look on his face. He wordlessly passes Sophia's doll to Carol, and catches her when she nearly crumples to the ground.

 

“Who is she?” Glenn is the first to raise his voice, and the others start as if from a dream. Carol clutches the doll to her face, her breathy sobs a solemn anthem.

 

“Can we trust her?” Lori's voice is close behind.

 

No one else speaks.

 

“Her name is Cal,” Rick says. “She's offered to help find Sophia.”

 

“Can we trust her?” Lori repeats.

 

For a long moment the group is quiet. Daryl glances to each of them as they stand around, even T-Dog has climbed down from the RV and his scheduled watch. He can see from where he stands that they're worried about the little girl, and the gruesome and cold idea of what her losing her doll might mean. Carol is weeping, though she muffles each cry into the doll itself.

 

His gut is twisting. He looks away.

 

Rick answers after a long while, “we have to. For now.”

 

Shane is shaking his head from where he stands near Lori.

 

“Why?” Andrea is the first to speak her mind. “We know nothing about her. For all we know she could --”

 

“She knows about another group 'round here.”

 

They go quiet. The memory of the Vatos' fallen nursing home is still fresh and real and _there._ They hadn't had a lot of dealings with others, but they had seen what they could leave behind. The bodies, the looted rooms, a broken kingdom. Their enemies-turned-friends so thoughtlessly murdered in their own home.

 

Fear lines their faces.

 

“I didn't get a lot from her, but from what I can tell they're not friendlies.”

 

“You think she might be with them?” Shane asks.

 

“Like leading 'em back here _with them_?” T-Dog clarifies, and Shane nods.

 

“I don't know,” Rick says. “We need to be careful 'round her until we're certain she's okay. We'll keep a watch on her. Hershel wants her off her feet tomorrow, someone staying behind can keep an eye on her while the rest of us head out.”

 

“Carol and I can do that,” Lori says, glancing at the other woman. Carol nods back from where she sits, her hands white around the doll.

 

“I don't trust her,” Daryl's voice is a gravelly shock. They all glance at him from where he leans against the door. “But for what it's worth she refused to talk 'bout Sophia when she thought was I with 'em.”

 

“That counts for something,” Dale chimes. He glances around at the group, noting their incredulous faces. “That's got to count for _something,”_ he breathes.

 

Rick nods, “it just might.”

 

The meeting adjourns. As they begin to drift away to their respective tents and sleeping arrangements, Dale approaches Rick. The older man regards him carefully in the dark, and when he speaks it is in a quiet voice that echoes of a time long gone. “A feral dog lived around my neighbourhood,” he says quietly. “Thing lived behind a dumpster. Never came near a soul. Irma fed it one day. Followed her home after that. I think it was the first kindness it had seen. That damn thing,” he laughs quietly, “followed her until the day it died.”

 

He walks away after that.

 

Rick watches him go.

 

As does Daryl, from where he stands in the dark.

 


	9. Chapter 9

She sleeps lightly, and when she wakes in the morning, it's to find Patricia slipping into the room to change the bandage at her side. Cal watches her, noting the crows feet tugging at her eyes, and the dark shadows that lounge atop her cheeks. There is a tightness to her lips, and a sadness to her eyes. Their eyes meet for a moment before Patricia looks away. She doesn't say anything until she's finished, and even then it's only a soft spoken voice in the quiet of the room.“Rick will want to talk to you,” the older woman says, before standing and leaving.

 

Cal doesn't wait long. Rick and Hershel enter the room shortly thereafter, their faces blank. She realizes that Rick isn't wearing his police uniform, and it unsettles her.

 

_That badge hold any meaning anymore?_

 

_It can._

 

The two men settle around her. Hershel takes a seat at the end of the bed, and Rick settles himself on an old chair. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. She supposes the lightness of his expression is to make her feel more at ease – it doesn't. For a long while he considers her, even as Hershel hands her a few antibiotics and a glass of water. They are a welcome distraction from Rick's stare, and she pushes them past her lips.

 

“We need to know more 'bout that group,” he says quietly. “We've got people we need to protect.”

 

Daryl had said something about children, and while she had yet to see any, she had met Patricia, the woman with the sad eyes, Hershel with his cane, and the older man in the bucket hat, Dale, with his stiff walk. While she is still suspicious of them, she remembers the shock and fear on the mens’ faces when they'd seen the little girl's doll. They were afraid for her.

 

And now Rick asks her about the group. _We've got people we need to protect,_ he says.

 

“More than three,” she says. “I heard them saying something about the pharmacy – heard them mention someone else. I think they're keeping stock. I'd be careful sending your people into that place.”

 

Rick glances at Hershel. Hershel's lips are thin and his brows drawn.

 

“Did they see you?”

 

There is a long moment of drawn in breath, and then the quietest whisper, “yes.”

 

Rick grits his teeth. “Tell me.”

 

“They caught sight of me. Chased me through the town. They got a truck. I don't know about guns – they didn't let off a shot,” she remembers the boy hollering in her ear, whooping for joy as he raced after her. “They didn't catch me,” she says. “But they wanted to.”

 

Rick nods and sucks back his anger. He catches Hershel's eye, and he notices the apprehension there – as if he isn't quite certain what he is hearing, as if the world shouldn't be so far gone.

 

“Daryl tells me you wouldn't tell him 'bout Sophia. You thought he was with them?”

 

She nods.

 

She hated worrying for someone else. It wasn't something she had felt in a long time; it wasn't something she had ever thought she'd feel again, especially now with the world the way it was. She had been ready to hold out as long as she could, and to protect someone she knew nothing of, to save a girl from the treachery of mankind.

 

“I'd be careful while looking for her. Those aren't the sort of men you want to run into -- and you definitely don't want them following you back here.”

 

Hershel's lips are thinned and white and he is staring out the window, considering something beyond Cal’s line of sight.

 

Rick stands and nods, “thank you.” Hershel follows suit, and the two men move towards the door. Rick pauses and glances back, “some of us are heading out today to look for Sophia. If you need anything, just holler.”

 

He's turning away when she calls his name.

 

“I hope you find that little girl,” she says to him.

 

He nods, “me too.”

 

* * *

 

 

She can see the yard if she sits up. She can see the group of people gathered around the nose of an old truck. Men and women and young people and old. She's watching Daryl stalk off towards the barn when someone wanders into the room, a long haired woman with wide brown eyes. She stands at the door, a tray in her hands and indecision writ on her face. Cal stares at her, and the woman stares back. Eventually she moves and sets the tray down at the bedside table.

 

“I'm Lori,” she says, her voice sharp.

 

“Cal.”

 

“Carol will be checking up on you too.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Cal can feel the tension that rolls off of the other woman. She can't blame her. Discomfort was the way of the world.

 

Both women are quiet. Lori eventually looks away and out the window, towards the assorted group of men and women collecting around the nose of a truck. She crosses her arms, and blows a piece of loose hair out of her eyes. Cal pulls the tray onto her lap and bites into the sandwich. Her eyes flutter shut as she chews; the taste of butter and ham and cheese almost hurts. There is a glass of water sweating beside the plate, and she cringes as the cold bites her teeth.

 

“You out in those woods for long?” Lori settles against an old table and watches her eat.

 

“Not really,” she says around a mouthful of food. She doesn’t offer anything else, and she can tell that her short reply doesn’t help to settle Lori’s mood.

 

It seems like an hour before she finishes, eating every scrap of food off the tray. There is a peach that she nearly inhales, and for a long time afterwards she sucks on the pit until her tongue is sore. Eventually, begrudgingly, she places the pit in a napkin. Lori offers her a tight smile as she fetches the tray, though it isn't hard to see how tentative it is.

 

“Finding that doll means something to our people,” Lori murmurs. Cal doesn't say anything – she looks out the window and watches as the last few members of the group move around their makeshift camp. “We've been having... a tough time of it. We could all use a little hope.” The way her voice catches causes Cal to glance at her sharply. Lori moves towards the door. “I just wanted you to know that. We're grateful.”

 

And then she leaves.

 

Cal lays in bed, staring at the door.

 

The house is quiet with life – the occasional murmuring voice or soft conversation are the only things she can hear. Someone laughs softly; the sound is so genuine and real that she swallows back a thickness at the back of her throat. The sound is almost foreign; it's so entirely different from everything else in the world.

 

Slowly, and without meaning to, she sinks away into a sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

She dreams. Of things long gone. Of a man sitting in the dark, unaware of his daughter out from her bed, murmuring to himself of the things he'd seen and done. Of a little girl running through the woods, hounded by snarling shadows. Of a world succumbed to immutable sadness, and the soft lilting tune of a whistle.

 

And of a lightning storm, silent and without thunder – daring in its beauty.

 

* * *

 

 

The silence shatters. The single crack of a gunshot echoes. The house draws in a breath around her, and she can feel the world shutter as a beacon alights the sky. _Here we are,_ it shouts, _come and get us._

 

The world stretches as she wakes. She struggles to sit upright. The duct tape saves her stitches, the tautness of it sucking at her skin rather than her healing, doctored wound. For a long moment she sits there, breathing in the thick air of the stuffy room, and then the house erupts with a quiet activity.

 

They move past her room, hurried and desperate. The look on Rick's face is of hardened concentration as he and another man heft an unconscious person between them. Several others follow after, the concern on their face evident. She's pushing back the covers when someone hesitates at her door – Shane, the tempest.

 

Their eyes meet for a moment, and his lips twitch. He shakes his head and moves on down the hall. She sets back against the wall, and waits, listening to the hurried whispers from the room down the hall, and the angry murmurs of discontent. At length, Rick comes into her room. He sets himself down in a chair and stares at the blood on his hands – dark, and browned, she thinks, the blood of a walker. She stares at him, and he at his hands. Eventually, he looks up and meets her eye.

 

“Something happened to Daryl in the woods,” he says slowly. “He's unconscious. We didn't get a lot out of him.”

 

“The gunshot?”

 

“One of our people made a mistake.”

 

She blinks, “is he hurt?”

 

Rick's jaw tightens, “Daryl was going back to where you found Sophia's doll.” He's watching her, waiting for her response. “Ran into some trouble out there, we don't know what. The usual: walkers. Maybe _something else_.” The room is stuffy. The air is thick and heavy. She knows what he's doing. He's dropping bait, and waiting to see if she'd react. He's testing her, and her allegiances, to see if she was alone as she had claimed. After a long while he rubs at his nose, “just thought you should know.”

 

“Is he going to be okay?” It's a foreign question, one she's uncertain if she really wants to know the answer to.

 

Rick considers her for a moment. “He'll be fine.” He gets up and leaves the room, pausing momentarily in the hall when she raises her voice.   
  


“I'd like to start help looking for the girl tomorrow.”

 

Rick glances over his shoulder at her, his jaw tense and his eyes dark. She can see the indecision, the uncertainty, the doubt. He wants to trust her, but he's cautious and careful. “We'll see.”

 

He pulls the door shut. There is no sound of a lock clicking into place; no echo of something barricading the way out. There doesn’t need to be. He simply pulls it shut, blocking her from their world.

 

* * *

 

There is a tension left in him, something he can't shake. Merle is still there, dancing behind his eyes and laughing at him, taunting him with that shit eating grin of his. He's there in his ear even as he crawls from unconsciousness; he's there in the room even as he blinks into awareness and finds Shane and Rick and Hershel looming over his bed.

 

“Daryl,” Rick's voice makes him wince.

 

“ _Damn_ , not so loud.”

 

“Do you remember what happened?” Hershel asks.

 

“Yeah. Someone _shot_ me,” he grouses.

 

“What happened out in the woods, man?” Shane ignores the pointed look from Rick.

 

Daryl glances between the three men, somewhat overwhelmed by the pounding of his head, and the throbbing of his side, and all the goddamn questions. Hershel is looking at him levelly; Shane waits with an expectant look on his face; Rick's jaw tightens over and over.

 

All three cast a glance down the hallway towards the only other door – firmly shut.

 

“You went back to where Sophia's doll was found?” Shane's voice is careful.

 

“Yeah, and the trail was a dead end. Thought I'd scout a bit, see if I could get somethin'.”

 

“Did you see anyone in the woods?” Shane glowers. “They do that to you?” He gestures to the bandaged wrapped around Daryl's middle.

 

Daryl hesitates, his brother looming in his mind. “Nah man – dumb animal spooked and threw me --”

 

“If you had just asked me, I could have told you that Nelly would have done that,” Hershel murmurs.

 

Rick steps forward, his eyes intent, “you didn' see anyone else out there?”

 

Daryl sees the way the three men cast varying looks of doubt and suspicion down the hall. “If this is about the girl --” Shane opens his mouth to say something “-- she ain't got nothin' to do with this.”

 

The tension in the room freezes.

 

“You sure?” Rick asks.

 

Daryl huffs, “I'm sure.”

 

“And you didn't see no one else?” Shane reiterates.

 

Daryl scoffs, “nah man. Just a couple geeks. Our trail from yesterday ain't disturbed none either.”

 

The tension in the room relaxes.

 

Rick glances at Shane. The other man is looking away, out the window towards the golden fields. There is a relief in Rick's glance, as if a burden has been lifted. He sighs and looks back to Daryl, taking in the wrapped bandages. “Hershel says you should be off your feet for a while -”

 

“- gotta find Sophia.”

 

Rick shakes his head, “and we will. We'll keep lookin' tomorrow. You're gonna stay here, and rest up.”  
  
Rick, Hershel and Shane turn to leave when Daryl's voice catches them, “you gonna take Cal up on her offer?”

 

Shane and Hershel are staring at Rick. Rick's jaw is working, and then he nods, “yeah. I think I might.”

 

As they leave, Carol slips past them with a plate of food and a soft, sad smile.

 

* * *

 

She wakes to the soft light of dawn, and rises from the bed. The first few moments on her own two feet are shaky, and then she feels the rush of renewed strength from the first good meal and rest she's had in months. She moves to stand at the window.

 

The only other person seemingly awake is the young asian man slouched in the lawn chair atop the RV. She watches him, the land sweeping out from the farmhouse, and the silent shapes of the tents. She doesn't know how long she stands there, but when Patricia and Hershel's daughter, Maggie, as she introduces herself, wanders into the room she realizes her heels ache.

 

Patricia eases her to the bed and helps change her bandages. Maggie stands off to the side, a bundle of clothes tucked in her arm. “Thought you might need some new clothes,” Maggie says, holding out the pile with a careful smile. “They might fit a little funny.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Maggie smiles, and eyes the duct taped forearms of Cal's long sleeved shirt. “I don't need them back, so you can do what you need to 'em.”

 

Maggie and Patricia leave, the two woman sliding out of the room with soft and tentative smiles. Cal changes, peeling off her old clothing with a grimace and a sigh of relief. She shrugs the new long sleeve shirt on, and is fussing with the cuffs when someone knocks at the door.

 

“Come in,” she says.

 

Rick hesitates in the doorway. “I talked to Daryl.”

 

The tension from yesterday, after Daryl had returned worse for wear, had been suffocating. She could only assume he thought she was involved in some way.

 

“Is he okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Rick nods, and moves through the door with renewed confidence. “Said his horse threw him. Knowing Daryl,” he scoffs lightly, “probably more to it than that, but he won't say nothin'.” Cal nods. “He's laid up today – Hershel's orders. I was thinkin' you might like to help look for Sophia.”

 

Cal blinks up at him. When she had asked the day before the intensity and venom in his voice had been startling.

 

_We'll see._

 

There were things he needn't say. Daryl had been unconscious and injured, hurt by _something_ Rick had said. The implications hadn't been spoken, they hadn't been needed to. She couldn't fault him his suspicion, it was the only thing that would keep him and his group alive.

 

He's looking at her expectantly, waiting her reply. She nods, and says, “of course.”

 

He accompanies her out of the house and to the same truck she'd seen yesterday. A small group of people are gathering around it, looming over a fresh map and biting into fresh fruit.

 

“Want one?” The young asian man she'd seen sulking about stands in front of her. He's holding out a basket of peaches. “I'm Glenn.”

 

“Cal,” she says as she takes one. The others around the truck nod in greeting, introducing themselves around their morning meal. Shane, and the cold blond woman, Andrea, hardly acknowledge her. The older gentleman with the bucket hat from the night before, Dale, offers her a reassuring smile, and stands confidently at her side. His ease puts her off, and for a moment she considers moving away.

 

“It means a lot that you’re helping,” he says quietly. When she glances at him sharply he nods towards the short haired woman standing forlornly off near the RV. “To Carol and the group,” he adds.

 

She doesn't say anything.

 

Rick and Shane are quietly discussing areas of the map, while a young man leans over the nose of the truck and points out key areas – developments, small clusters of commercial buildings, farmsteads and ranches. He introduces himself as Jimmy, the boyfriend of Beth. He points out the town in which Cal had come from, and it is only when the silence becomes deafening that she realizes everyone is looking at her. “You came from here?” He asks.

 

“Yeah,” she nods.

 

“Those men had a truck. They could be anywhere,” Shane says.

 

Rick glances at Shane and Cal, “gas is still a precious commodity. They take a lot from that pharmacy?”

 

Cal shakes her head, “I don't know. I don't think so.”

 

Rick's jaw tenses. “What's the nearest town 'sides that one, Jimmy?”

 

Jimmy points out a larger dot on the map. “Senoia. About forty five minutes from here. Woodbury is another fifteen past that.” Shane rubs at his head, and lets out a soft curse. Jimmy glances back and forth between the calm intensity of Rick and the flaring temper of Shane. “What?”

 

Shane lets out a scoff, “if you jump in your momma's car an' drive to the convenience store, you go to the one closer or further away?”

 

Jimmy blinks. “Closer.”

 

“If they're from Senoia, why ain't they goin' to Woodbury? If they're nearer Senoia, why ain't they goin' there? These assholes are probably right on our front step--”

 

“Shane,” Rick warns.

 

“This ain't just 'bout that little girl anymore, Rick. The safety of the group--”

 

“What are you suggesting?” Rick grinds out.

 

Shane glances at Cal and Jimmy warily, and then back to Rick, “you _know_ what I think.”

 

Rick's jaw is tight. He grinds his teeth for a moment before he glances back to Cal and Jimmy. He points at the map, circling his finger several miles around the town – over an assortment of farms, orchards, and outlying communities. “They're nearer the town. If we give it a wide berth, we'll be less likely to run into them.”

 

Shane scoffs, but Rick ignores him. He points out a farmhouse Daryl had visited several days earlier. “It's close to the creek,” Rick says, pointing out where Daryl had revealed the location of the doll. The two points are hardly a mile from one another.

 

“I think we should send a few of our people that way. Daryl's out for today. I'm thinkin' that Cal, you and I, we're going to --”

 

Shane scoffs lightly, “I'm comin' with you, man.”

 

Rick shakes his head, “no. I need you to check on this development.” He points at one that Jimmy had mentioned previously. It sits on the opposite side of the creek from the town, a few miles out from the general area Rick had drawn around the town. “After practise this mornin', take the best shot with you. In and out.”

 

Shane's jaw clenches and he nods.

 

Cal doesn't say anything. She glances back and forth between the two men. The tension is electric.

 

When Shane turns and leaves she watches him – the way he walks, the way he _moves._ He's in rut, she thinks. He's temperamental and dangerous and dark – and he means something to Rick.

 

He means the world.

 


	10. Chapter 10

They gather in the front yard mid morning. It is there that she sees the majority of the group together – and it is the first time they see her. Most of them eye her warily, though a young boy pressed to Lori's side lights up at the sight of her, and watches her with avid curiosity. Lori smiles as she runs her fingers through his hair.

She watches them, noting their brief moments with one another. Carol, the shorter haired woman who had checked on her several times the day before, hangs back, eyes moist and lips thin. Glenn stares longingly after Hershel's daughter, Maggie. Dale gives Cal a wink from where he sits atop the RV.

"Cal."

Cal stops. She turns to greet Rick, trying to bite back the nausea that had been plaguing her for most of the morning. "Rick."

"You should hang back for this. Rest up and save your strength," Rick explains. "It's just target practise. We're gettin' our people used to using a gun. It'd do you right to rest. You'll be no use to anybody if you can't walk straight."

"Do you usually use guns out there?" She asks, trying to redirect his attention from her discomfort.

"Only when necessary," he says. "Some people in the group haven't shot a gun before – it'll be handy for them to know."

She nods, watching the way Carol hunches over herself, or how the young girl, Beth, quakes with uncertainty.

"We'll be back in a half hour," Rick says. "We'll go out looking for Sophia then."

She nods.

Rick moves past, his hand briefly patting her on the back.

"Alright. We're moving off property," Rick explains. "Don't want any noise we make bringin' anythin' back. The sound might draw a few walkers, and the further we are from town the better."

He doesn't embellish, she notices, and wonders if it's because he hasn't told his people about the other group. However, the way Carol freezes at her side makes her think that they may already know. She glances between several of the others, noting the quiet stillness they've adopted – like prey, she thinks, in the moment it realizes it will die.

"We'll be walking," Shane says, lifting a large black bag over one shoulder. "We don't want to waste any gas, and we're more likely to run into trouble on the road than in the trees and the fields."

Shane turns and leads the way, an excited Andrea at his side. The others move with solemn steps, almost as if they're half alive. She watches them go until they're beyond her line of sight, and she turns to move into the house.

"It's hard to accept help when you're not used to it," Dale's voice shatters the silence of the farm, and Cal stops on the stairs of the porch to glance at the older man atop his RV.

"Pardon me?" Cal squints up at him.

Dale shrugs and stares out across the field, refusing to meet her eye. "Nothing," he says.

* * *

"I'm taking Andrea," Shane says as they walk up to camp. "She's got a good eye on her."

Rick nods, "she's the best shot so far."

"But?"

"But she's temperamental – don't let her get you into trouble."

Shane lets out a bark of laughter. "Get _me_ in trouble?"

"Get who in trouble?" Andrea asks as she approaches.

Rick shakes his head. "Just talking about this housing development."

Shane and Andrea go over the details of the housing development before Rick sees them off. The green SUV kicks up a cloud of dust as it races off down the farm road. As the vehicle disappears into the treeline he turns back to the map, eyeballing the creek and section of land Daryl had scouted the day before.

It's as he's tracing his finger along the suggestion of a service road that he hears the door of the house creak open. He glances up in time to see Cal slip from the house with that same cool expression on her face.

He folds the map and tucks it under his arm, hurriedly moving towards the strange woman swaying on the porch. Her discomfort is obvious, but he certainly isn't going to suggest she sit out a day of searching for Sophia. Cal was a stranger, and Sophia...- Sophia was one of their own.

"Hey, Rick!" T-Dog comes loping up to his side. "I'm coming with you, man."

Rick shakes his head, "I need you here. Make sure no one heads to town."

"Nah man, can't do that. See, I'm comin' with you. I'm backin' you up."

Rick sighs, "she had nothin' to do with Daryl-"

"If we run into that other group, you want someone at your back you can trust."

"T-Dog, you're injured, you only just finished up with your antibiotics-"

"I can't stay 'round here another minute. I need to be _out there._ Doin' something."

Rick is quiet for a moment. He would have preferred the other man staying behind.

"Let him go," Dale chimes up from the open hood of the RV. Glenn stands beside him, looking helpless. "We'll make sure nothing happens here."

Rick sighs, places an appreciative hand on T-Dog's shoulder, and nods for him to follow.

Cal moves off the porch to greet them, and Rick hands her her hunting knife. She blinks warily and accepts it before strapping it to her thigh. "You took it?"

"I couldn't be sure," he says.

She meets his eye, and nods. "I understand." And she means it.

"You know how to use that?" T-Dog asks.

Cal's lip twitches, her eyes narrowing with a dark mirth. "I know which end to put where, if that's what you mean."

He lets out a low chuckle, and nods at Rick, "I like her."

They move out through the fields, and towards the wood. The moment they hit the creek she leads them upstream, staying along the shoreline until it begins to climb into the familiar rock face. It isn't long before they're standing at the point she had found the doll, and it is there they find several walkers sprawled haphazardly around. Her eyes narrow when she realizes their ears are missing.

Rick and T-dog shuffle past, trying hard not to look. They take in the scuffed dirt and sand, marvelling at the fact that Daryl even managed to make it back to them. T-Dog prods at one of the bodies when they hear splashing, and turn in time to see Cal clambering over the sandy point bar and disappearing into the bushes. They follow carefully, Rick's fingers tightening around his Magnum.

"This is where the trail goes cold," her voice sounds from ahead, and they duck out from the bushes to see her standing over a faint suggestion of tracks.

"At least we know she went this way," T-Dog announces, glancing between Rick and Cal.

The three of them regard the shadowed wood stretching before them, vast and quiet and empty.

"Come on."

* * *

She had almost forgotten what it was like to be around living, breathing people – especially ones that weren't trying to kill her. She supposes that even if they weren't trying _now,_ it certainly wouldn't stop them _later._ The brief bouts of dizziness that sweep over her remind her of Merle, and how he had been perfectly complacent until she had tried to leave.

There was a stark difference between Rick and Merle; one that would have been obvious in the old world, and was obvious well on into the new. Merle had been an abrasive son of a bitch from the moment she found him in the cube van. His fuse had been short and sparked; one wrong word and he would have left her a lot sooner than he had. In comparison, Rick was patience incarnate. He had a quiescence about him – a calm that depended solely on her decisions, _her_ fuse.

"House ahead," T-Dog's voice is low.

The three of them pause.

The old house is washed out – greyed and dusty. It reminds her of Betty and Graham's home – a pleasant vacation cabin lost out in the woods -, but years gone bye. The white paint is crusted and falling away; the roof sags lethargically; and the windows have all been smashed away. There is an old rusted shell of a car parked a few metres away, the brambles and brush of the forest coiling possessively around the frame.

They approach it with tentative steps, moving up to and around the perimeter with careful steps. T-Dog flanks them while Rick moves quietly ahead to peek through the yawning windows. Cal peers past him, blinking wearily at the empty rooms and blank walls.

"This house has been dead a long time," Rick says from ahead, and Cal nods in agreement as they take the stairs of the porch up to the front door. The wood is old and wet, it sags underfoot, and is so saturated and rotten it hardly breathes a moan. The door itself is gone – dead leaves and animal droppings line the hallway. The dust of countless seasons is undisturbed and thick on the floor.

They search the house, but it yields nothing. What little remains is long dried up by the years, suggesting it had died long before the dead had risen. The three of them stand in what once was a kitchen, listening to the wind breathe through the vast and gutless house. It feels real. More real than Betty and Graham's untouched home. It's not the past, but the future, Cal thinks. A crumbling and weathered and dead future.

This is all that would remain of humanity in the years to come.

They leave and wander out into the woods, following the overgrown road that winds through the trees.

For a long while there is silence. Each of them stare ahead, refusing to look over their shoulders at the house shrinking back into the darkening wood. It's only when the house is gone that the tension bleeds away, and Cal releases a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Cal. _Cal._ That stand for anything?" T-Dog glances at Cal, fighting to brighten his expression with a slurred smile.

She shakes her head.

He purses his lips, "What you do before all this?"

She shrugs, "a few things."

"Not very specific," he drones out.

"Not something I like to think about anymore."

He makes a sound in his throat, and Rick snorts lightly. T-Dog ignores him. "Alright. Where you from?"

She's staring off down the road, her lips twitching as she recalls a life gone bye. "Macon, actually."

"Never been."

"Not surprised. Not a lot to see in Macon."

"Wasn't that where that guy was from... - the one that killed a Senator?"

She nods, "his parents owned the local Pharmacy – nice people."

It's weird. Funny, even. To think of a time when something like _murder_ wasn't an everyday inevitability. The normalcy of their conversation is enchanting – disillusioning them to the time and place and _present._ Each of them are wondering of a time when a newspaper wasn't something shrivelled and folded and pressed into a fire, but something planted on their table or into their hands.

"Any family in Macon?"

It's a treacherous question. One that causes Rick to inhale sharply, and T-Dog to wince and mumble an apology. Cal remembers a man and a woman and several years of awkward phone conversations. The last time she had seen her parents had been after a funeral; cold, stark, haunting. Her mother had cried; her father had simply said, _he tried, Cal. Remember that he always tried._

It had been years since she spoke to them.

"Parents," she says, and T-Dog blinks in surprise. She had every right to not answer; it was simply the way of the world now. "Dad is ex-military."

"Better off than most."

"Maybe."

They turn to silence again. The only sound rising between the three of them is the crunch of gravel underfoot. They don't walk for much longer before Rick is murmuring something, and each of them look off into the trees towards a dark shape set off from the haggard saplings around it. They pause, and stand there in the middle of the old road – and they feel the sharp chill of trepidation creep along their spines and nestle firmly in their guts.

Rick moves into the trees, and Cal and T-Dog flank him with careful steps. Cal's fingers are coiled around her knife. Rick's hand is on his Magnum. T-Dog clutches his bat with a white knuckled grip.

The saplings – little more than seven feet tall - spit them into a campsite. They stand at the edge, breath still and heart pounding wildly in their ears. The dark tent – a plethora of greens and browns – broods a few meters away from the cold, wet firepit and a stack of soggy, old logs.

"Sophia?" Rick calls softly.

Cal winces.

T-Dog glances over their shoulders, ready for any stragglers to come stumbling from no where.

They move forward, Rick sliding his gun from his hip-holster. Cal's hand curls around his shoulder, and he glances at the buck knife in her hand.

Cal holds a finger to her lips. She stands off to the side of the flap, her fingers coiling around the edge. Rick takes a few steps back and gives a nod.

She pulls it open.

Nothing, but a dusty sleeping bag.

They move around the campsite, taking in the solitary life this person lived in their last weeks or days. One lawn chair set up beside the fire pit. One dirty plate tucked in an empty bucket of dried scum. One can of soup cracked open and rotting near the stones. One pair of leather shoes still tucked neatly at the tent entrance.

They find the truck tucked back in the trees, as brown and dusty as the tent. The door is unlocked. There are boxes in the back filled with rations, clothes, bottles of water – the kind of things someone would need to _live_. The three of them stand at the tailgate, the indecision a tangible thread they all grasp together.

"The truck's been here a while," Cal is the first to speak.

Rick nods in agreement, "whoever it was, they're probably long gone by now."

"Someone ain't just gonna leave this all behind," T-Dog reaches into the back and hefts one of the few boxes into his arms. "He didn't take his shoes – he's probably a walker by now."

There is a solemnness about his words, but Rick and Cal nod and begin searching through the boxes alongside him. While Rick and T-Dog attack the trunk, Cal moves to the cab and grabs a large pack slung behind the driver's seat. She empties the contents on the ground and sorts through the assortment of personal items the previous owner had stored away.

"We can put some stuff in the pack," she suggests before she turns back to pushing her hands through a series of old, musty clothes. Some of the items she places off to the side, knowing someone in Rick's group would find use for it. And then her hands still on a photo.

She blinks - once, twice. She looks away sharply, and turns the photo upside down. There had been a man and a child – smiling and laughing. She swallows a sudden thickness in her throat as she tucks it away in the front seat.

She doesn't want to know who they were. She doesn't want to know why there was only _one goddamn sleeping bag_ and not two. She doesn't want to know why the boy, Ryan – signed on the back in chicken scratch -, wasn't with his father.

"What's that?" T-Dog motions.

"Someone else's memories."

She digs around in the cab. In the glove box, and behind the seats. Rick and T-Dog are piling as much as they can into the back pack when she find the crossbow bolts. A pack of them, broken and splintered and useless. She pulls the lot of them from the truck and shows them to her companions.

"Too bad," T-Dog grunts. "Daryl would of appreciated 'em. He's a devil with that bow of his."

She remembers the quiet, the moment in which she had realized she wasn't alone. She remembers the bolt pressed against her forehead; the acceptance as death washed over her. He had been calm and cool; ready to pull the trigger.

"Yeah," she says softly. She returns to the truck and continues to search the cab. As she digs under one of the seats her fingers catch on something sharp and cool; a single, unbroken bolt.

* * *

The sun is beginning to dip in the sky by the time they start making their way back. They leave the campsite, taking what they can in the pack. They alternate carrying the bag, though Rick nearly refuses Cal when he notices how pale she looks. The stubborn set of her jaw at his suggestion has him quickly retracting the offer to _sit this one out._

They move out quickly, Cal refusing to slow them down. Rick can see the wear of the day in the pallor of her skin and lips, and the shaky steps she tries so carefully to hide.

Rick doesn't hear anything while he's carrying the bag. T-Dog wanders up ahead with careful steps, and Cal walks quietly at his side. He blinks and she's gone, and the next moment he feels the earth tilt as something falls on him from behind. When he scrambles away he realizes the walker is already dead, and Cal is standing there in its stead.

The sun blinks from behind her. Her knife is black in her hand.

For a long moment they are still. Rick stares up at her, and she down at him.

And then Cal offers him her hand.

"Thank you," he says.

"Wasn't your time, Rick Grimes."

* * *

When they arrive back at camp there is an intensity in the air. Lori is standing off in the tall grasses, staring into the distance; Carol is hovering over a pot of carrots; and Maggie and Glenn are staring vehemently at one another across the lawn.

T-Dog wanders away, Rick goes to deposit the pack beside the fire, and Cal trails after him.

He hardly realizes she is there until she moves up beside the fire, looking down at the charred logs that let off a wispy plume of smoke. Carol glances at them from her perch nearby, and Rick solemnly shakes his head.

She nods and excuses herself to the RV, clutching at her mouth as if it'll stay the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

They stand there above the fire, staring down at the embers. Rick rubs at his neck and looks up towards his wife.

"I want to say thank you again. For helping look – and for today."

Cal nods.

"You're probably tired of hearin' how much it means to us, but it does."

She's not looking at him. She can't. It feels weird to be talking to someone – and to be talking to someone like _this._ She had let that side of the world go – she'd let the thought, the idea of gratitude fall away. It had become nothing more than a pipe dream – a legend; it had become something she never thought she'd see, or experience again.

"Where were you plannin' on headin' after this?"

She shrugs, "somewhere. I'll help you look for as long as I can, but then I'll be movin' on."

Rick glances at the empty camp. "You're welcome to stay with us," he says. She glances at him sharply. "If we move on, you're welcome to come."

"You don't even know me," the surprise is evident in her voice.

"No. I don't," his jaw works, and he lets out a soft scoff. "But if we're going to survive _this,_ we need to come together to be strong – and we're stronger as a group."

He's taking a chance.

He knows it.

She knows it.

"We'll see," she says.

"You should get some rest. We have an extra tent. It's in the RV, if you'd like."

"Thank you."

"I'm hopin' my trust means something," despite the warning he holds out a hand.

She takes it, "it does."

* * *

T-Dog helps her set up her own tent nearer the edge of camp, yammering on about the queerness of _wanting_ to be alone. He blubbers when he realizes what he'd said, but she gives him the barest smirk as she presses her laugh into her palm.

It's the first time she's laughed in an age.

Dale brings over a sleeping bag, apologizing that there are no more cots or spare sleeping pads.

"It'll be the ground, I'm afraid," he says.

It is the first time she's really spoken to the man – not including his moments of sage advice -, and she finds herself smiling tentatively as he bustles around her tent complaining to T-Dog about his lack of craftsmanship.

The two bicker quietly, though their words wash over Cal with a warmth that leaves her feeling uncomfortable. She promptly thanks both, and exits the tent; she still has something to do.

* * *

The tent isn't noticeably far from the group, but she can see how it is set back a few feet – as if it doesn't quite want to be there. For a long moment she stands there, staring at the flap hanging loosely from it's zipper. It's open enough to be inviting, but shut enough to not be. She contemplates turning and leaving when she hears a soft curse from behind her – she glances over her shoulder to see an angry Rick storming across the camp towards a wide eyed Glenn.

She ducks through the door - and comes face to face with Daryl.

"What're you doin' in here?"

She blinks at him for a long moment.

"You deaf or jus' stupid?"

She watches him as he watches her. He has a scowl on his face. A wound slithering down from his temple. His shirt is open. His side bandaged. His eyes are narrowed and he's biting at his lip like he isn't quite sure what's going on. He's opening his mouth – probably to grumble some more at her – when she reaches up and pulls the crossbow bolt from where she'd tucked it in her pony tail.

"Found this," she says. "Thought you might like another one."

He eyes it warily as she presents it to him. "Pro'lly not the right size," he grouses, taking the bolt into his hand with a tentative glance.

She waits as he eyes it, as he twirls it between his fingertips and runs his fingers along the orange and yellow feathers. He catches the tip on his thumbnail and squints down the shaft, appraising it carefully.

She nods, "right kind?"

"It'll do," he mutters.

She turns to leave when his voice rises up, making her freeze. "You find anything out there?"

She hesitates. She hesitates because there is something in his voice – the barest thread of hope. "Not what we were looking for," she says over her shoulder.

He nods slowly.

And looks away.

"Tell them assholes to quiet down out there. Some people are tryin' to sleep."


	11. Chapter 11

The sun has burnt through the morning chill by the time everyone is awake. No one says a word, their eyes heavy and skin already slick with sweat. The day is going to be hot; the Georgian summer making one last push to drive them haywire.

Cal is propped up inside the house at the Greene's kitchen table, a glass of milk and a plate of eggs sit in front of her. It is only as Hershel peels back the duct tape to reveal the long line of stitches down her side that she looks away from the proffered meal.

"It looks good," he says, pulling out a warm cloth and dabbing at the pinked skin. He cleans it quickly, and places only a thin layer of gauze over the wound before sealing it with the barest suggestion of tape on either end. "Give it a chance to breathe today," he explains. "With the heat and duct tape – well, we don't want it festering."

She nods and lets her shirt fall down. "Thank you."

Hershel tucks a handful of antibiotics into her hand. "Rick seems to trust you."

She blinks and looks out the window towards the group of people slouched around the smoking firepit. Rick is perched beside Lori on a log, their son, Carl, tucked between them. "He seems like a decent man," she says, tossing back the capsules with a mouthful of water.

Hershel makes a sound in his throat, and follows her gaze. "I'd be careful," he murmurs. "I'd be careful how far you entrench yourself in their business. Not everyone in that group shares Rick's conscience."

He excuses himself and leaves quietly.

Cal returns to her meal, mulling over Hershel's redundant warning. In the brief time she had known the group, she had seen the tension roiling beneath. It was subtle, but all storms began in a calm. Shane was Rick's friend, but there was something about the man – a wildness that betrayed the civility Rick was hoping to bring.

She's chewing quietly on a spoonful of eggs when she hears it – the barest scuff of someone's shoe on the floorboards. She glances up, startled from her thoughts. Daryl stands at the doorway of the kitchen, an orange pill bottle cradled in one hand.

Cal meets his gaze evenly, and for a long moment they stare at one another. Daryl glances at her plate of food, the cup of orange juice.

"They treatin' you alright," he says with a nod.

The statement – it certainly isn't a question, she thinks - catches her off guard. She blinks and he's gone – the kitchen door breathing shut behind him. She sits in silence, wondering if he had been there at all.

Cal wanders out from the house after she's eaten. The group is gathered around their smoking firepit, and so she joins them, leaning against a tree near T-Dog. Daryl glances up from his own plate of scattered eggs – she meets his eye for a brief moment, and then he looks away.

The group is quiet. Their faces drawn and tired as they suffer in the heat. Forks and spoons click listlessly against plates. People sip at water, and even pour some on their faces and necks. The silence is insufferable, agonizing, and tense.

Dale is staring at Glenn.

Glenn is ringing his hat in his hands.

"Um, guys?" Their attention is hazy, as if they aren't quite sure the man begging their audience even has words in his mouth. Some lick and chew and suck on the food in their mouths, their attention idle and eyes blank – complacent. "The barn is full of walkers."

And then their complacency vanishes.

They're like deer in headlights, freezing in unison and _waiting._ Waiting for someone to tell them it's a joke, or for something to reiterate and _hit them_ with the truth.

Dale blinks at them all, and then he nods, his voice lending force to the stuttered words of the younger man. "It's true," he says.

Slowly, one by one they all turn and regard the barn looming in the distance – more menacing in it's solitude now that the truth is ringing through their ears; more menacing as the silence of the morning surrounds them fully.

"How many?" Shane is barking, and Rick is suddenly there pushing him away from Dale and Glenn.

"Over a dozen."

Shane pushes past Rick and runs towards the barn – the rest of the group follows, pulsing behind him like an angry mob. Rick and Lori hang back, hissing soft words.

"If something happens, Rick..." Lori grabs at him. She's panicking. "If Hershel kicks us out-"

Her voice drowns away as she looks down at her stomach.

* * *

There were decisions going to be made; choices that would affect the group in more ways than one. A storm was coming, and it would be loud – but the new world didn't have time for noise. It ate up and spat up anything that whimpered or cried or begged.

The day holds a sour note thereafter. Everyone tries to return to normalcy, but always their eyes turn to regard the barn squatting solemnly in the distance. Even after Shane proclaims his intentions to watch the barn, the solitary figure pacing back and forth before the old building is hardly reassuring.

The quiet of camp that had originally driven Cal to her tent eventually drives her back out again. There were only so many times she could rearrange the paltry things scavenged from the Pharmacy in town. She crawls into the heat of the day. Everywhere people attempt to busy themselves, but always their eyes stray back to the barn.

Glenn and T-Dog wave at her from atop the RV. She climbs up beside them.

"Hard to believe, huh?" T-Dog lounges in one of the more comfortable lawn chairs, his bat sitting across his lap. "We've just been sitting here pickin' daisies, and there's a whole barn full of those things just waitin' to bite into us."

She makes a sound at the back of her throat. "It's not a bad idea," she murmurs.

"I know I didn't just hear you say that," T-Dog grunts.

Cal shrugs, "that was one of the things about the city. With that many walkers around, stinking up the place, you knew the only way they'd come after you was if they heard or saw you. Keep quiet, and out of their line of sight – it kept you alive."

Glenn nods, "probably why the farm hasn't had too much walker activity."

"That and the geography," Cal says, nodding towards the treeline hugging every corner of the farm. Behind the shaded trees lay innumerable cliffs, slick point bars with sucking sand, and waist high mud pits.

The three of them look out across the field, watching as Rick and Hershel move off into the trees. Their attention drifts towards the barn, where Shane moves back and forth in front of the door. The door jumps. He moves away, tense and ready.

T-Dog scoffs, "still don't make me feel any better."

Cal shrugs, "it shouldn't."

He looks out wistfully towards the open fields. "Last time we were complacent – well, there'd be a lot more people here today."

Cal nods, _she understands._

The solemnity of their new lives settling heavily about them.

It seems as if they sit there forever. The sun bakes their skin, and it isn't long until Cal crawls down from the RV to fetch the dirty bandana discarded in her tent. Her skin feels raw as she spills water on the dirtied rag and tucks it around her neck. When she exits her tent, it's to find Andrea trotting towards the RV.

"I thought you and Rick were going out?" Glenn calls out as she approaches.

"Hershel needed him for something," she shrugs.

"No one is out looking for Sophia?" Cal can't hide the surprise in her voice. Andrea scowls.

"Rick should be back in half an hour. We really shouldn't be sending too many people out – not with the barn the way it is."

"They're riled up enough with just Shane over there," Glenn calls down, the concern in his voice apparent. "I'm sure we could spare a few people-"

"Rick's orders," Andrea says up to him and climbs into the RV.

Cal stands there in the dirt, looking out towards the barn. Movement catches her eye and she watches Daryl come hobbling out of the stable with a hand to his side. He makes his way towards the camp, the urgency in his step making him stumble once or twice – his fingers always dart to his side.

"What the hell does that cracker-ass think he's doing?" T-Dog glares across the field.

They watch as he draws nearer, his eyes down and lips tight. They're silent as he passes the RV and Cal with hardly a moment of recognition. He pushes into his tent and leaves them there in the quiet of the day.

In the distance they see Carol wander out from the barn, her shoulders tired and eyes down.

Cal glances up at T-Dog and Glenn, both of them staring down at her with curious expressions – and then she turns towards Daryl's tent and they both suck in a sharp breath.

The door isn't zipped up. He's sprawled on his back on his cot, arm over his eyes and crossbow bolt twirling idly in his fingers. There is a tightness to his jaw; a tension in his shoulders; a stillness about him that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Slowly he looks at her, lips tight as he chews on a piece of grass stalk.

They regard one another.

"You going out?" She asks.

His arm falls away from his face, and he stares at her openly, unable to hide the suspicion flaring in his eyes. "Why? You goin' to try and stop me?"

She stares at him.

"What's with you women?" He grouses, turning to glare out the screen window.

She glances at his injured side. "If you go out, let me come with you."

His breath catches, and when he looks to ask her what the hell is wrong with her - she's gone.

* * *

She returns to the RV to find it empty and abandoned. Even Glenn's perch is unattended – T-Dog gone with him. She slips up the ladder of the RV, and slouches into the lawn chair – and that's when she sees Dale in the distance, skirting the treeline with a black bag over one shoulder. She blinks and he's gone.

"Dale in there?"

The voice shocks her. She glances down from the shaded perch, and meets Shane's gaze evenly. There is a flaring storminess to his eyes, and a tightness to his jaw. She doesn't know the group very well, but she had known men like Shane in her life.

"Why?" She asks, her expression plain. The word slithers past her lips, and it ignites a disbelief in his careful expression.

And for a moment she sees it – fury.

He scoffs, "I don't have time for this – now, did you see Dale or not?"

Cal doesn't say a word.

Shane lets out a grunt and shoves himself into the RV. It rumbles underfoot, as if he is throwing himself around in its belly. It isn't long until the side-door is thrown open, shuddering against the side, and he's stalking around camp. She watches as he spins around, eyes wild and searching as he takes in the fields and the dark woods surrounding the farm.

"Shane?" Glenn and T-Dog are moving back from the house, hands full with water bottles.

"Which way did he go?" Shane barks and moves towards them. Glenn stumbles back, his eyes wide.

"He said he'd watch-"

"Well, he ain't," Shane glances up at Cal. She's still staring down at him, expression bland and patient.

Glenn blinks up at her and then back to Shane. "He asked us to get water-"

"Perfect," Shane runs a hand over his scalp, eyes wild.

"W-why?"

"He took the damn guns, _that's why,"_ Shane snaps. He doesn't say anything else; he doesn't wait for them to respond. He turns and storms off towards the trees – towards the darkening wood, and Dale. Cal watches him go; she can't interfere. It isn't her group; these aren't her people.

Glenn and T-Dog crawl up beside her. They watch as Shane moves further and further off into the fields until he disappears into the trees. They are unmoving even as the sun seethes down at them atop the RV, and the splinters of their failing group begin to surface.

Andrea stands ready at the barn; Maggie remains vigilant at the house's porch; Lori and Carl wander sporadically between the house and their tent; Carol makes her way back to camp and settles herself at a pot of laundry.

"How'd you do it?" Glenn asks, his voice cracking and breaking with his nerves.

Cal looks at him. She leans back in the lawn chair, and tugs at the scarf hugging her neck; it had dried out at one point, and then dampened with fresh sweat.

"Do what?" Cal looks back towards the treeline.

Glenn shrugs, "get out of Atlanta."

She thinks back on it – all of it. Not just the moments with Merle, but the cop and the cruiser; the apartment closet and the wailing woman and child. She had gotten out of Atlanta without Merle, it had been by some misfortune that she had found him unconscious on the side of the road.

"Alone," she says.

"What about that guy you said you hooked up with for a few days? The one that took your pack," T-Dog pointedly glances at her side and head.

She shrugs, "some scumbag I found outside of Atlanta. If anything I helped _him."_

Glenn winces, "left you stranded up shit creek?"

Cal nods, "didn't even waste a bullet. Just left me there in the middle of the road."

T-Dog and Glenn go still.

"This world is harsh and cold," Cal says absently. "People do crazy things to survive."

The three of them sit there into the day thinking of a man without a hand.

None of them say his name.

* * *

It happens in the afternoon. Shane is storming across the fields alone, a black bag slung over his shoulder. She can already imagine his furrowed brow – low and dark over an inscrutable expression. Rick isn't back yet; she knows what's going to happen.

A shout rises up. People spill out of their tents and gather at the house. Beth and Maggie and Patricia are there, telling them to back down, to back down, to back down. The tension is electric. It sparks and surges through each and every one of them.

"Are you with me?" Shane's words are an invite, but they ring of _more –_ they pulse with the certainty of action, of violence, of the here and the now.

Cal stands off from the group. She stands alone and quiet and watching. The group is divided. It splinters further as both eager and reluctant hands take up the proffered guns alike. It splinters even further when someone cries out, and everyone is looking to the barn – to Rick and Hershel and Jimmy leading two Walkers like dogs.

They run.

She stands there in the dirt and watches them. She can hear them yelling.

"I tried," a voice says behind her. She turns to find Dale moving stiffly towards her. He shakes his head. His eyes are light with a misty expression of defeat. "I tried to stop him. I tried."

"I know," she says.

The loud peppering of gunfire jolts the two of them from their quiet. They look up to see the barn doors sighing open, and the first of the walkers pouring out. Dale moves past her, jogging as quickly as he can through the grasses. She watches impassively from the lawn of the house.

These aren't her people.

She can't intervene.

She moves forward slowly. The echo of the gunshots makes her wince. It reminds her of Atlanta those first few days; gunfire echoing like rain against a window pane; days and nights filled with terror as the shots rang on and on – until they promptly stopped.

Cal eyes the green wood surrounding them, briefly imagining a pulsing wave of undead trailing out from hell at their loudness. It sends a shiver up her spine, and she jogs the last hundred metres to the group.

It is as she moves up alongside a panting Dale, and Hershel's crumbling family that the shots finally stop.

The group goes quiet. The quiet sobs of Hershel's family punctuate the soft curses of Rick, and the moans of protest from his wife. Lori clutches fervently at Carl; the boy looks around wide eyed. Nobody notices the door of the barn sighs one last time.

"Sophia?" Carol's voice is a whisper. Everyone blinks.

Cal turns and stares.

The stunned silence is enough for her to know that the small girl emerging from the barn is the one they had looking for.

"Sophia!" Carol lets out a strangled moan. She takes one step forward before Daryl grabs her and holds her back. Her breathy sobs elicit a crackling moan from the tiny, bloodied girl. Everyone is quiet. Nobody moves even as Sophia stumbles eagerly over the bodies of the dead.

A few eyes stray towards Shane. A few eyes watch and wait.

It's the _here_ and the _now_ and he isn't doing anything.

He simply stands amongst the paralysed firing line, and stares in horror.

And then it is Rick unclipping his Magnum at his hip.

It is Rick moving forward with a gentle sigh.

It is Rick in a Sheriff's uniform, speaking to her in the light of a dying day, and her own question ringing out: _That badge hold any meaning anymore?_

And his answer: _it can._

It does – here and now.

It is Rick that slips his gun from its holster – and it is Rick that draws and shoots.

The silence echoes through them all.

For a long moment there is nothing, and then Beth rushes forward wailing.

Chaos erupts. People are yelling, people are crying. A walker clutches at Beth, and everyone shrieks and pulls and tugs.

Hershel yells at Shane. He tells him to leave and never come back. The group surges up and around, shouting protests or agreements.

Hershel turns and walks away. Defeat lines his shoulders.

He splinters.

* * *

The camp is quiet. They're burying the dead family of the Greene's, and burning the rest. The smell of it is brief on the wind. In the distance a black cloud billows into the sky.

She finds the pack leaning against a tree, empty and forgotten – divulged of the goods from their impromptu scavenge the day before. The plastic bag wouldn't get her far, and so she grabs it and tugs it along behind her.

"What are you doing with that?" Dale's voice is shocking in the quiet of camp. Cal blinks uncertainly at him crouched in the doorway of the RV, a bottle of water in one hand and his damp hat in the other.

"Plastic bag won't get me far," she says stiffly.

Dale lets out a breath and plops his soggy hat on his head. Water beads down his forehead. "You're leaving?"

She nods slowly, "you found the girl." She winces at her words – they sound insensitive and heavy.

"Rick offered you a place here."

"And I told him _I'd see."_

Dale sighs, "we'd be stronger as a group."

"Maybe," Cal shakes her head, "but I don't know how strong _this group_ is."

He's hurt, but there is something on his face that agrees. He tries not to – he tries desperately to believe the world can hold onto its goodness. He tries to pull and tug and hold on so tightly to the last threads of humanity, but they slip between his fingers – and then away. He is morality; he is the old world; he is unrelenting in his belief that humans can be _good._ He tries so desperately to believe his people are _good._

She doesn't have the heart to tell him that the world isn't black and white – it's not even grey at this point. It's the colour of blood; dried and crusted and flaking away.

She doesn't have the heart to tell him that his group is more likely to get him killed than keep him safe.

Cal moves into her tent, ignoring Dale's soft protest. She shoves the plastic bag of items into the pack, frowning over how little she truly has. The pack slumps, deflating.

She tugs at her damp scarf.

Dale ducks through the entrance of her tent, disbelief writ on his face. "We would be stronger with _you_ here."

She shakes her head, "you hardly know me."

"I know enough," Dale says. "I know that you mean well. I know that you wanted to find Sophia. I know you _know_ Shane."

She glances up sharply, "I don't _know_ Shane."

"No," Dale agrees. "But I know you can tell what kind of person he is."

Cal stares at him. Dale stares back.

"I don't know anything about the man," she hisses.

She gets up and moves past him out the tent. He follows behind her.

"He killed someone," he says quietly. It doesn't matter – no one is around to hear him anyways. "He killed a good man to save himself."

She looks out towards the billowing cloud – an inky smear across the blue sky. A pristine day marred by the cruelty of the world they now live in.

Dale's words are meant to shock her, but they don't. Instead she remembers the suffocating apartment, the closet with its consuming darkness. She remembers the vacuum pipe in her hands, and the silence – the silence of the city had been absolute.

And then the screams of the woman and her child as they were thrown to the streets, as they were left to die. She could have helped them; she could have lowered the fire escape and let them in.

She hadn't.

She hadn't wanted to risk the walkers following them up; she hadn't wanted to risk the little food and water she did have; she hadn't wanted to risk _anything._

It haunts her. She can remember the decision, how murky it had been. She hadn't wanted to die, whether it was being eaten or having nothing to eat. While she knows the bitter taste of remorse, she knows Shane most likely does not. Dale was putting too much faith in her goodness; he was hoping he had found an ally amongst the crumbling ruin of his group. He was hoping her disgust would lead to righteousness.

It doesn't.

Cal stares evenly at him. "I've done the same," she says and pushes past him.

"So that's it?" Dale calls after her. "You're just going to leave?"

"I have no reason to stay."

Cal walks towards the house. She doesn't look back, but she imagines he's standing where she left him with some helpless expression of defeat.

She enters the house in time to see Beth collapse.

* * *

Hershel is missing, and in the silence of the big house the past hours haunt them.

They stand around in the grey room, their eyes downcast or red or weeping. They look at Beth, pale and still, or out the window into the painfully bright day. They don't look at one another. Lori looks at her hands. Maggie runs her fingers across her sister's brow. Cal is staring out the window.

She had been the first to react. Reaching down to check the girl was still breathing. Maggie had been grabbing at her, but Cal had taken one step and pushed her away.

"You shake her, you might very well hurt her," she'd hissed.

Maggie had calmed down, and between the three of them they had carried the broken girl to her room. It was there that Cal set her on her side, and where she wrapped her in blankets.

"She's in shock," Maggie had said.

"I know," Cal had murmured.

"We need my father."

Cal's jaw had tightened. "I know."

Lori had left to find Hershel, but he was gone – whispered off the farm like the wind. No one had even heard him leave.

"We need to find him," Rick's voice is like a beacon. The three of them blink from their stupor and turn to him. He stands at the door, eyes on Beth – there is decision in his face. "Where would he have gone?"

Maggie blinks, her eyes red and swollen. She pushes at her forehead as if to shake the thoughts from her skull. There is something in one of her hands, a flash of silver. She lifts it – a flask. "Patton's," she murmurs. "A bar in town."

The silence that follows is thick and heavy and sucks the air out of their lungs. One by one they glance at one another; one by one they look to Cal, and remember the tidings she had born.

Rick is staring at the ground, at his shoes, at his wife, and at Cal. He opens his mouth and closes it. He sighs and breathes and sweeps from the room. Maggie trembles beside her sister. Lori leans forward into her hands. Cal stares out the window, across the fields to the burning pile of corpses.

They're crumbling to ash.

Movement catches her eye. She watches a tent unfurling in the distance, a field apart from the camp. The black motorcycle parked beside it only reaffirms what she had already guessed.

"Daryl's moved," she says.

"What?" Someone asks, but she doesn't reply.

The sound of voices startle them, and one by one they turn to regard the open door. Rick's voice drifts up to them. Both Cal and Lori stand and leave the room. Maggie doesn't move.

In the kitchen there is a storm. It rattles the house with its quiet words. Shane is shaking his head. Glenn is pleading. Rick's face is tilted to the ground and his eyes are shut.

"Shane," Rick's voice is imploring.

"We can't, _"_ Shane mutters. When Rick glances at him, Shane glowers back, "we _can't_ and you know it."

Rick blinks, and when he replies his voice drips with intensity. "I _know_. But we can't just leave him out there."

Shane's eyes harden,"It would solve a lot of problems, man."

"Wait—what?" Glenn's voice rises from somewhere in panic, bewilderment, disbelief.

Rick's jaw sets, "we are _not_ having this discussion."

He goes to turn away, but Shane is suddenly there – large and dark and stormy. "Yes we are, Rick."

Rick's eyes meet Lori and Cal in the dark of the stairwell. They stand side by side and watch him. He meets their silent scrutiny; he shoulders it readily.

"You go out there, and those men out there might just follow you back. You want them to come here, man? Find Lori? Find _Carl?"_ Rick doesn't say anything. Shane bristles. "And for what? So we can pack our bags and get gone by morning?"

Rick turns then, his eyes calm and cool. "I am not leaving him out there."

"Those girls need their father. _We_ need Hershel," Lori hisses from the stairs. Her voice is enough for Shane to pause. He hesitates when he meets her eye – and then he turns and leaves.

"I'm coming with you," Glenn says. Rick freezes and turns to face him.

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not. I'm going. You _need_ me. You need people that know that town. We get in, we get out – they'll never know we were there."

Rick is quiet, his jaw tightening. There is truth in Glenn's words. Everyone in the room can feel it. The two men stare at one another for a long moment, and then there is the barest shift in Rick's expression – consent.

Cal emerges from the dark of the stairwell, leaving a wide eyed Lori behind. She moves to stand beside Rick, her expression ever cool. "How many others have you run into? Besides from me, and each other."

Rick's eyes harden, "had a misunderstanding with some good people – and one other man and his son. They saved me, gave me food and shelter."

"You were lucky then, Rick," her voice hushes the house into a petrified quiet.

Rick's eyes narrow as he takes her in. "What exactly are you saying?"

"Don't hesitate to shoot first."

* * *

They leave shortly thereafter. The group is quiet.

Cal wanders out from the house with pack in hand. She ignores the pleading look from Dale from his perch atop the RV, and chucks the half empty pack back into her tent. She stands in the threshold for a moment, considering the small pallet she had had made up the day before.

She turns from it, refusing to further delve into the kindness the group had shown her – even going so far as to offer her a permanent home with them. It was difficult to accept something so tempting when the very foundations of that home threatened to crumble away.

"I thought you were leaving?" T-Dog asks from the fire. Cal blinks at him. "Dale told me you were thinking about it."

She glances at the house. "Not until Hershel's back with his daughters."

"I think you should stay," T-Dog's honesty makes her pause. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "I saw how you handled that walker on Rick – we could always use someone who knows what they're doing."

"Groups make me uncomfortable. I like being alone."

T-Dog's lips thin as he pushes around sizzling ground beef in a pan. A moment of silence stretches on, and then he turns and eyes her hard. "Even if you're going to die alone?"

She blinks, and then swallows.

"That's what I thought," he says, wiggling the spatula at her.

The two of them are silent, and then T-Dog jerks his chin towards the chair at her side. "Mind tossin' me those," he asks, indicating the orange bottle of pills on the lawn chair. She does.

"What happened?" She nods towards his bandaged arm.

T-Dog grimaces, shaking his head with a scoffing laugh. "Got a little too desperate. Cut my arm on _something._ Herd came up on us -" at her blank expression he explains, "a group of walkers ain't like we'd ever seen."

"They're travelin' in groups now," the new voice cuts in, and the two of them blink up at Daryl. He stands off to the side, crossbow slung across his back, empty water bottle in hand. "Migrating or somethin'."

Cal blinks, remembering the group of walkers that had loped behind them during their narrow escape from the strip mall. They had stumbled out from whatever hell they endured to amble along behind the rest. The group had been colossal; a twisted marvel only Atlanta could have spat out at them.

"You think they're savvy to something?" She asks.

Daryl fills up his water bottle from a bucket of boiled water. He glances over his shoulder and shrugs, "nah. They're dumb. They ain't got nothing but loose rocks up there."

"Was that the only group you ran into?"

"Like that? Yeah," Daryl shrugs, and then turns and leaves.

T-Dog and Cal watch him move off and away, out into the field and across to the treeline where the faint outline of a tent squats amongst the saplings.

"Look, I bet it's nothing," T-Dog mutters around the mouth of his water bottle.

"Maybe," is the only word she says.

Dale crawls down from atop the RV and makes his way towards them. Cal stiffens, and moves away from the cluster of tents. She can hear T-Dog's laugh at her retreating back, and Dale's confused voice calling after her. She ignores it and heads into the fields, eyeing the plume of smoke curling above Daryl's lonesome tent. The setting sun casts the world in a familiar blue tint; the smoke is vibrant against the dark wood behind it.

They haven't said more than a few words to each other, but her feet guide her towards his small encampment. He doesn't look up from the sapling he whittles. The twig's bare body gleams in the fire light.

She sits down on the ground with her back to the farm, her eyes drawn to the shadowed mouth of the forest not more than a hundred feet away. She would never have felt safe sleeping here, but she supposes she no longer feels safe sleeping near Shane either.

"Do you need help?"

He shakes his head.

They sit on into a long silence. He doesn't ask her to leave, but neither does he ask her to stay. She sits apart from him, her hands running through the dead grasses around her. The fire crackles low and the sun sets before either makes a sound, and even then it's the barest hiss of breath as Daryl shifts against the crumbling cairn at his back.

Cal glances up from the fire. She watches the discomfort play across his face, though he tries to hide his hiss with a mumbled curse. His fingers are tense around the sapling and knife, his jaw tight as he concentrates on discarding the pain. Cal looks away when he glances up.

"Do you need something?" She asks, familiar with the pain he must be feeling. Her own side flared with heat; irritated and tainted by sweat.

"I'm fine," Daryl grouses, fingers darting to his side. He draws in a breath before he settles back, shifting to accommodate the wound. After a moment he sighs, his eyes growing heavy with sudden reprieve.

Cal's lips thin."Maybe you should have Patricia take a look at it-"

"I said I'm fine," he snaps, glaring at her. She meets his gaze evenly. He doesn't notice her fingers coiling around the end of her knife.

Without a word she stands, brushing herself off. She turns and moves away from the glow of the fire, her steps quiet even atop the sun-scorched grasses crumbling under foot.

"Thanks."

His voice startles her. It shatters the quiet of the night, and she blinks back over her shoulder at him. He refuses to look at her, his eyes to the fire.

"For what?"

"For protecting Sophia."

She's confused for a moment.

"At the creek," he clarifies. "When you wanted to know who she was to me. She ain't my kid, but she meant somethin' to the group."

"And that's why you're out here, isn't it?" Cal asks.

"Group's broken," Daryl rasps to the flames. "I was just trying to fix it."

There is a melancholy about him – something quiet and wounded. He stares longingly into the flames as if the fire itself holds the answers; it reminds her of Merle, bewildered and frightened as he murmured quietly to himself after discovering his brother may have succumbed to the inferno.

A destroyed hope.

"There ain't nothing left," he says.


	12. Chapter 12

She hadn't slept well. Rick and Glenn and Hershel hadn't returned, and she had repacked her pack several times over before crawling onto her sleeping pallet. She had lulled herself into a fitful sleep with promises of leaving when Rick and Hershel returned – and then she had dreamt of lightning storms, a tilting sky, and an endless wave of walkers crashing against the farmhouse.

The morning is a slow affair. She dresses her wound with a few dabs of polysporin, wincing as the skin tightens over her ribs. She grimaces as she slides into her shirt, and ties her hair out of her face.

When she steps into the world, the rest of the camp is quiet. Shane sits atop the RV, though he hardly casts her a glance. Carol squats in front of the fire, pushing something akin to eggs around and around in the pan. Her expression is grim, her lips perpetually turned downwards in some semblance of a frown.

Cal turns, and nearly bumps into Carl. The boy apologizes while he rubs the sleep from his eyes, and yawns up at her. His mother stands behind him, fussing with her belt. Cal notices the scrapes on her face and shoulders and hands; Lori notices her interest and pats Carl on the bum.

"Let's go see if they need help in the house," she murmurs, and as they pass Lori gives Cal a nervous smile. Cal watches her retreat with a knitted brow. Lori doesn't look back.

"What happened to her?"

"I dunno. Eggs?" Carol's soft voice breaks Cal out of her stupor, and she accepts the proffered plate with a strained smile. The two women sit into the quiet morning, the grey light bleeding away as the sun crawls above the horizon. Eventually Shane crawls down to gather his own plateful of eggs, but he hardly stands around long enough to shove his few spoonfuls into his mouth before crawling back onto the RV.

Carol's painful quiet eventually forces Cal to suck at her teeth and break the silence.

"What was Daryl doing in the barn yesterday?"

Carol stiffens, "he was going out." _To look for Sophia,_ she doesn't say.

She doesn't need to.

"He should of been on bed rest," Cal comments around a mouthful of eggs.

Carol nods, "I told him as much."

Cal blinks, noting the slouch to the woman's shoulder, the beaten quiver of her hands. She sucks on the end of her spoon, and nods, "good."

Carol smiles – brief and fleeting.

The two women resume their quiet, the uncomfortable silence slinking away to resemble something more hospitable – and almost _comfortable._

Eventually, the rest of the group joins them. They stumble out from their tents or the RV, slumping into the assorted lawn chairs littered about the fire. Carol dishes out a few more platefuls of eggs, and everyone becomes quiet as they try to appreciate their morning meal.

It's only as Daryl joins them that they hear the faint rumbling of a vehicle break the silence of the morning. Each and every person freezes, their eyes growing wide or moving to the lone SUV that rolls down the drive. For a long moment they are still, eyes wild as they take in the vehicle and then the long empty road behind it.

Nobody is following them. The group breathes a collective sigh of relief.

One by one they move, finishing their eggs and dumping their plates in an empty bin. The group beelines for the house, Shane galloping ahead of them with the watch rifle slung over his shoulder.

There is a silent relief as the three men step from the SUV; they take in their dark eyes and ashen faces. Hershel is shaken, and Glenn's hands tremble. Rick leans against the vehicle, and looks to Cal with a darkness in his eyes. She lifts her chin, and he nods.

"Did you see others?" Andrea asks. As soon as the question leaves her mouth, the rest of the group surges forward with their fear and anxiety.

"Do you think they followed you?"

"How many were there?"

"Were they armed?"

"What are we going to do?"

"Who is that?"

The last one draws a sudden silence. One by one everyone turns to look at the back seat of the SUV. The burlap sack tucked over the person's head is enough to make them clutch at one another and bristle and glance about warily.

Rick rubs at his eyes, and Hershel looks pleadingly at his eldest daughter who reaches out for Glenn. Glenn in turn presents the group a sheepish grimace. "That's Randall."

"You brought one of them _back here?"_ It's Shane that voices his outrage for the group. He bristles, his lips pulling back in a snarl. He stalks towards Rick, confusion and anger flaring in his eyes. "Do you not remember what _she_ said about them? Your last stray?!"

Cal watches Shane carefully, her jaw clenching as he throws a finger at her. She isn't particularly fond of being called a _stray,_ though she supposes the term is correct if nothing else.

Rick's voice is calm and quiet, "I remember."

Shane glowers.

"We couldn't leave him there. We got overrun by walkers."

"He's hurt," Glenn supplies.

"Is he bit?" Lori asks.

"Is he going to die?"

"He shouldn't be here!"

Rick holds up a hand and the group grows quiet. "We're going to patch him up."

"And then what?" Andrea asks.

Rick's face is dark, "we'll see."

Silence is the only response.

They fetch Randall from the car, and between Glenn and Rick they manage to carry him inside the farm house. The group remains muted even as they pass, the stench of blood and vomit wafting to their noses. Lori turns Carl's eyes away when they spot the wrecked skin of his mutilated leg.

"Oh shit," T-Dog grimaces.

Andrea's face goes grey, and she steels herself against the smell. Dale places a placating hand on her shoulder.

When the door wheezes shut behind them, the group disperses. They wander back to camp, a new tension settling about them.

Shane doesn't move. He is shaking with anger; his eyes flaring. He runs a hand over his face and turns away. Cal stands a few feet away, her gaze bland and even as she meets his own.

"You think you might know that kid?" Shane asks, his voice low.

She glances over his shoulder towards the door, towards the curtain being drawn in the same bedroom she'd stayed in. Cal looks back to Shane. She doesn't like him; he's too unpredictable and violent. Everything about him screams dominance and madness.

"There are a lot of people in the world-"

"That's not what I meant. I asked if you might know him from town."

She bristles. Her words are cold and sharp, "If I saw his face."

"How many were there?"

"A couple. I only got a good look at a few of them."

Shane is shaking his head, "he knows better. Rick _knows_ better."

"Didn't sound like they had a lot of choice," Cal drones.

Shane scoffs. "We can't have him leading his friends back here."

Cal's expression is carefully poised, "what exactly are you suggesting?"

He looks at her, "I think you know."

"You want to... _off_ him," she can't bring herself to say it – it's foreign and heavy and even a little too far past the edge of her own twisted morality. The woman and child are brief flares in her memory; she dealt enough with her inaction having led to their deaths. She can't fathom being the one to drive a knife through a man's chest.

"If he's one of those creeps from town, you really think we should just be lettin' him wander back to his people?" She doesn't say anything, and when she looks away he ducks down to catch her eye. "Well?"

She glowers at him, "If he's one of those guys from town, you won't need to worry about what I'm thinking."

"Cal?" Shane and Cal look up to see Rick walking towards them, his jaw tight and working. "Could you identify one of those men from town if you saw 'im?"

The three of them stand there, a subtle tension flowing between them that grows and grows until Cal is blinking and wiping at the sweat beading on her brow. She nods to Rick and moves to follow him.

She brushes past Shane, and for a moment their eyes meet.

"Remember what I said, Cal," he says.

The three of them move towards the house.

* * *

The living room is stifling. Glasses of cool water sweat onto the wooden table, and a bowl of peaches sits untouched. The screen door breathes with a gust of wind, carrying in the sweet smell of a dying Georgia summer.

They stand about the room, staring at one another or at the door tucked down the hall. Cal looks out the window, fingers vigilant at the hilt of her knife. Hershel watches Rick and Shane, lips thin as he considers the two men. Glenn fidgets with his hat, staring down into his hands with a pained expression on his face.

At once the silence is broken. Cal lifts her chin to Rick and asks in a quiet voice, "what will you do if he is one of those men from town?"

Rick pinches the bridge of his nose. "What can we do?"

"You know what we _should_ do," Shane says.

"Wait," Glenn's eyes widen. "Are you suggesting-?"

"We have to be prepared for that possibility."

"We don't know anything yet," Rick murmurs quietly to Glenn.

"But what if he's not part of that group?" Glenn glances down the hall.

"Then we'll drive him out when he has a better chance – and cut him loose," Rick says.

Shane's brow furrows, "we can't -"

"We don't know _anything_ yet," Rick repeats.

"What if he _is_ a part of that group? What if they come looking for him? Or we let him go and he leads 'em back here?" Shane asks.

Rick's jaw works, "his group left him for dead. I doubt they're looking for him."

"You can't know that," Shane says.

"And we can't just decide who lives and who dies," Rick hisses. "Not like this."

"Innocent until proven guilty, right?" Glenn suggests. Shane glowers at him.

Rick glances at Hershel. "What do you think?"

"I don't know, but we need to decide fast. If we wait any longer infection will set in – if it hasn't already."

The others start when Cal stands abruptly. She moves down the hall. Rick moves to follow her. The door hardly squeaks when it opens, and for a long moment the two of them stand in the threshold in uncertainty. The room is noticeably different from her time lost in delirium – it's darker, and the ripe smell of sweat and blood is thick on the air.

The boy on the bed isn't unconscious. He's staring at the ceiling with a heavy expression; pain and fever cloud his vision. His skin is grey and sweating, and if the situation had been different she knew she'd suspect him of being bitten. She takes a step forward. It is then she notices he's unbound.

The floorboard squeaks under her heel, and the boy – Randall – glances at her. For a long moment they're stuck; for a long moment neither can look away. She sniffs lightly, and says: "Someone will be in here to help you shortly."

She can feel Rick behind her. She can feel the sigh he releases. They turn and leave. Randall's eyes burn into her back.

Shane and Hershel stand when they re-enter the room. Glenn leans forward. "Well?" He croaks out, his voice quivering.

Cal stares out the window. The camp is quiet in the distance, though she can see Lori leaning over Carl, and Carol quietly picking at the laundry. She feels a sourness rising in her throat. She can feel hot breath running down her neck – when she reaches to rub it away, she realizes it is nothing more than a phantom.

No one is there.

"He was with them," she says as her hand falls away from her neck.

She meets Shane's eye.

Rick is rubbing at his face, and then he's suddenly there in front of her. "Are you sure?"

She blinks at him, "yes."

"That's a man's life."

" _I'm sure._ "

Glenn's voice rises in a soft panic. "So we _are_ just going to kill him?"

Rick holds up a placating hand, "nobody is saying that -"

"We can't have him leading his friends back here," Shane snaps.

"And he has friends," Cal murmurs.

Rick turns to look at Hershel, but finds nothing in the man's face. "I'll operate if you think it's best, but he poses a threat to us, Rick. To your wife – to Beth -" Hershel glances at Glenn, "- and Maggie."

Glenn looks at the ground, his lips thinning in realization.

Rick rubs at his face.

"You know we have to do this, man," Shane's voice rises over the low sound of Glenn groaning into his hands. "We can't just let him go."

Rick stares long at the ground, his jaw tight and teeth grinding. The room falls to silence as the situation settles more heavily in their guts. The rules of the old world were crumbling around them, while the rule – the only _real_ rule - of this new age was rearing before them like some great storm: _adapt or die._

She doesn't like Shane. She doesn't like how loud he is, or vehement, or dangerous. She doesn't trust him, but Rick does. Rick loves Shane.

"Listen to Shane," Cal's voice is low and pleading. She understands Rick's hesitance, but a decision has to be made.

Shane glances at her in gratitude. "Listen man," he says to Rick. "Eventually we're going to have to accept that the world's changed. You need to do the hard things to protect your family – to protect Carl, and Lori."

Rick glances up from the floor and meets Shane's eyes. Something passes between them.

"Can't we just drive him out and leave him somewhere? He doesn't know where we are," Glenn asks.

Everyone glances at Rick.

They force his hand.

Rick's jaw tightens. "We can't," he sighs. "If we let him go, we're responsible for what he does."

Shane lets out a breath, his victory evident in his eyes.

They go silent again. In the quiet of the living room they each stare down at their hands and imagine the colour red staining their skin. Eventually it's Shane that speaks, his earlier intensity curbed by his victory.

"Who will do it?"

"I will," Rick says with a nod.

"What will we tell the others?" Glenn asks.

"We'll tell them the truth."

"We should talk to him first." Everyone starts and glances up. Daryl moves through the screen door, his eyes narrowed as he takes in the reluctant council. "See if we can get any info 'bout his group. I'll do it."

Rick nods slowly, "you sure?"

Daryl nods – and then his eyes meet Cal's.

"I'll help," she says without pause. Rick's voice rises in protest. Cal doesn't look away from Daryl. "I heard things. I'll be able to tell if he's lying."

For a long moment it looks like he'll say no, but then he nods: "Alright."

* * *

She dabs the sweat from his brow, and sponges cool water past his lips. The chill of the cloth in her hands is the only thing grounding her – that, and Daryl's soft breathing at her back.

Randall is staring at her, the fever in his eyes doing nothing to dampen his silent scrutiny. Occasionally he glances at Daryl, though he shies with a strangled moan and looks back to Cal.

They've hardly been in the room for more than five minutes when he finally speaks, his voice desperate and wavering. "Am I going to die?" For a long moment no one says a word. The silence stretches on; the tension rises until Randall sputters in fear. "I'm too young to die."

"Ain't nobody too young," Daryl rasps coolly.

"We just went lookin' for our friends, ya know," the kid snivels. His eyes are on Cal, as if he thinks she'll offer him any more sympathy than Daryl. The cloth in her hands feels heavy – she drags it roughly across his throat, making him quake. "Your friends shot first."

"Ain't the way I heard it," Daryl bites at his thumb, seemingly nonchalant.

"You got a lot of friends?" Cal asks softly, surprised that her words aren't crumbling past her lips. She feels like shaking.

Randall blinks at her and then eyes Daryl cautiously. "They're good guys, ya know. Just tryin' to live."

Cal makes a sound in her throat. She wrings the cloth into the bucket, watching as the clear liquid begins to go grey. "Just looking for more time," she suggests. He nods enthusiastically, his eyes lightening as he realizes she understands. "Yeah, I know what it's like."

"Then you know we don't mean no harm."

"We've all had to do things for _more time,"_ she ignores him.

"Yeah," he blinks at her.

"Is that why they left you behind?" The cloth slides down his arm – she scrubs at his fingers. He says nothing, and she feels him tense under her hand. Her grip tightens; she turns his hand over and scrubs at his palm.

"They thought I was dead."

She makes a sound in her throat.

"They _thought I was dead,_ " he repeats.

She shrugs and releases his hand. He tucks it against himself.

"We've all been left behind one way or another," she says.

"How many boys you got?" Daryl's voice is muffled from behind his hand.

Randall blinks slowly, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "What's this about?"

"What do you think this is about, half-pint?"

Randall lets out a whimper when Daryl takes a step closer. "Please, I don't know nothing."

They go quiet, allowing the boy's panic to settle. She can feel his eyes on her – her skin crawls. She tries to ignore him, and begins to clean his other arm.

"You from around here?" Daryl asks.

Randall glances at Daryl over Cal's shoulder. "I ain't going to talk to you," he says with a whimper. His eyes fall to Cal. "I'll talk to her."

"You ain't in any place to make demands," Daryl growls.

Randall whimpers again. "I ain't going to say nothing then."

She can feel him crackling behind her. "I ain't leaving you alone with her."

"You have something to say Randall, you can say it in front of him," Cal explains.

Randall stares at her long and hard, his eyes darting every which way over her face. It isn't long before she can see it – the sudden flare of recognition. "Do I know you from somewhere?" He asks.

She can hear the smallest intake of breath from behind her.

"We met in town."

Randall's expression is careful. His brow furrows thickly over his eyes, his lips thin as if he can't quite comprehend what she's saying. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, his voice catching.

"You're right," Cal sits back. "We didn't actually meet. We had brief run-in. I think it was down Centre Street. Nice place."

Her voice is calm. Her words throw him for a loop. She can feel him tense again. She can feel Daryl's interest pique as he looms over her shoulder. The young man sniffs and sputters, more indignant and surprised than afraid. "She's crazy, man. I ain't never seen her before," he calls desperately to Daryl.

"Ain't what you said before," Daryl rasps.

Randall glances back at her, his fear evident, but his tongue tied. He lets out a gurgled moan and sinks as far from her as he can.

She wrings the cloth into the bucket – the water swirls black. "How long have you been using that town, Randall?"

He groans.

"Answer her," Daryl is suddenly there, one hand fisted into the boy's collar. Randall squeals.

"Not long," he shouts. "We was just passing through, ya know?"

"You best be telling the truth," Daryl growls, and reaches towards the knife tucked at his belt.

Randall quakes, but remains silent. His eyes meet Cal's over Daryl's shoulder, "help me, please."

She turns her face away as Daryl's knife slides from its sheath. He leans his elbow across the boy's chest and drags the tip along Randall's leg. He bucks under Daryl's weight, his eyes white with fear. "O-okay! Okay!" He shouts. "I grew up 'round here. They took me in-"

"How many?" Daryl asks.

"Something like thirty," Randall gasps.

"And?"

"And... they took me in. Just a bunch of guys, ya know? Good guys."

"How long have you been with them?" Cal's voice is low.

Randall quivers, "like a week-" Daryl pushes down on the tip of the knife, the skin casting a single red ribbon down the side of Randall's leg. The boy cries out. "A month. I've been with them a month."

"So they ain't moving around a lot, huh?"

Randall quakes.

"And you grew up here?" Cal asks.

"Yeah," Randall stares at Daryl, at the knife pushed against his leg, at Cal who sits impassively by and watches with a bland expression. "I _know_ Hershel – nice guy. I went to school with his daughter Maggie."

The room goes still.

A breath catches in Cal's throat, and she meets Daryl's eye over his shoulder.

It takes a moment for her to compose herself, but when she does she is tight lipped and blank eyed, her voice a soft drone.

"I have to empty the bucket. The water is dirty," she stands and moves towards the door, the basin tucked under her arm.

"You best talk," she hears Daryl mutter.

And then the soft sound of Randall crying out in pain.

The door clicks shut behind her, and she returns to the living room. Glenn, Hershel, Shane and Rick are all staring at their hands.

"He knows Hershel," she says. "He recognized him."

They don't look up from their hands, but she can see their shoulders slump. Glenn lets out a soft moan.

She stands in the doorway for a long moment, and then she moves to the kitchen to dump the water. The sink turns grey as the water swirls down the drain.

She stands at the counter at length, watching the clouds bulge in the sky. Eventually they break, and it begins to rain. Thunder sounds in the distance; she stands in stillness until it rolls and cracks overhead.

She stiffens when Rick leans against the counter.

"You think we should kill him," Rick says, more statement than question.

Cal blinks. The rain patters against the window sill. "We don't really have a choice."

"We always have a choice," Rick grits out. "That's what separates us. Us and the dead _._ We can choose to be better. We can make choices, and we can live with them."

"And if we choose to kill him?"

Rick's jaw tightens, "that's a choice I'll carry."

Cal turns to him, "is it something you _want_ to carry?"

Rick's eyes burn. "I killed two men last night," he says in a low voice. "They drew on us, and I killed them. Some people might say I had no choice, but I did what I did to to protect the group. _I_ made that choice."

"I told you to shoot first."

Rick shakes his head, "this isn't about blame. _I made that choice."_

She considers him for a moment; his eyes are blameless, and burn with a fervor. "You'd do it again."

"I would. I will," he says. They turn when Daryl moves into the kitchen followed by Hershel, Glenn and Shane. Cal notices the red blossoming on Daryl's knuckles; she looks away when he catches her eye.

"Group's large," Daryl rasps. "They ain't good people."

"You can't go looking for them," Cal says to Rick.

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Ain't be much use," Daryl says. "Kid said he had no idea where they might be. They move around a lot."

"Maybe they'll move on," Glenn murmurs.

"Nah," Daryl shakes his head. "Said he'd been with them for a month. They ain't left yet. They just move around this county."

"But they _might,"_ Glenn pleads.

Shane is quiet. His eyes are hard. His hands run over his head, fingers pushing at the scabby bald patch near his temple.

"Maybe," Rick nods. "But we should prepare for the possibility -" he glances at Hershel "-that they don't."

"This is my farm," Hershel frowns. "I'll die here."

"How many were in that group in town?" Rick asks Cal.

"Three or four."

Rick's jaw tightens and he nods. He glances at Hershel. "We need to be prepared for the possibility."

Hershel's lips tighten, "I know."

"We'll need our guns."

"I know."

"And we'll need to _stay_ together."

Hershel glances at Shane, "I know."

"If they find us -" Rick's hand shakes, though he tries to stop it. "If they find us, we can't let them go. We can't have them leading the rest of their group back here."

"And what about Randall?" Glenn asks, his face grey.

Rick shakes his head and looks to Cal and Daryl. "You're sure he said he knows Hershel?"

They both nod. "Mentioned Maggie too," Cal says.

Hershel grimaces. Rick frowns.

"We can't let him go."

The group is quiet. They soak in Rick's words, ruminating on the cold truth.. Shane nods, stands and leaves; the door hisses shut behind him. One by one the others slink away. It's only as Daryl turns to leave that Cal finally moves – she walks behind him, out of the house towards the camp.

Her eyes wander along his bloodied knuckles.

"Are you going to clean those?" Her voice is hardly a whisper over the thunder rumbling in the distance.

Daryl shrugs. "They ain't much."

"At least wash them up."

"I'm fine," he grouses.

She makes a sound at the back of her throat, and moves past him towards her tent. As she slides the zipper along its track, she sighs. "I uh - Thanks," she says.

Daryl hesitates and glances over his shoulder. "For what?"

"For having my back in there," she pauses, her breath tight in her chest. There are words she doesn't say, but in truth she doesn't need to.

Daryl had seen her tension. He had seen her try to hide behind her bland expressions. He knew what it was like, sitting beside someone who had terrorized him. Every day that he had endured his father's beatings, he had thought of how simple his life would be if the man had simply died.

He blinks at her, his lips thinning as he rolls over her words. And then slowly, he nods.

"You should get your hands looked at."

He glances down at his knuckles – bloodied and raw and weeping. Old scars that have split and bled. He can't help but think of his father – and Merle. They wouldn't have noticed.

But she did.

His brow furrows. "I'll think 'bout it," he says.

She looks at him for a long moment, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. And then she turns and leaves.

He watches her go. He doesn't look away until she's out of sight.


	13. Chapter 13

The rain washes away the grime. It settles the smoke from the burning bodies. It kisses the graves of the dead, and lays them to rest. In the distance the thunderstorm rolls– galloping on into a new county.

Cal watches it from the fields. She watches the dark clouds billow and bulge. She can see the lightning strikes; she can feel the wind rush under and over; and in the distance she can see the rain fall. She imagines it is falling on others – good people just trying to survive.

She pushes her bare toes down and into the earth; her head tilting back as the cool dew sweeps across her skin. She can imagine their looks. Shane probably thinks she's bizarre. Dale probably worries. Rick will accept it. Daryl watches in quiet.

She can see him lounging beside his tent. She can see the blur of his knife and the pile of bolts he's made at his feet. She meets his quiet stare. There is no judgement from him, only a soft contemplation as he works.

"What are you doing out here?" T-Dog's voice is low. It rolls across the grass.

"I'm watching the storm," she says, turning her gaze from Daryl to the roiling clouds in the distance.

"You're a strange one, girly," he chuckles from her side. For a long moment they stand in quiet, watching as the sky bubbles with menace. T-Dog coughs into his hand. She glances at him."Rick told us."

The illusion falters. The harsh grass beneath her toes begins to poke into her skin. The wet grass under her toes forces a chill. The thunder clapping in the far distance is _too loud._

"And what do you think?" She asks, bending over to shove her feet back into her boots. She grimaces at the worn laces and breaking seams; at the water seeping in to wet her socks.

T-Dog shakes his head. "I think we should be done with it."

"You think Rick should kill him?"

He shrugs, "I don't know what to think. But I know one thing – I don't want him or his buddies showing up here."

Cal nods and stands. "You should tell Rick that. He needs support in this."

They head back to the camp. Upon arriving they find Glenn perched atop the RV, his eyes wide as he looks out across the fields. Occasionally he glances at the road, his shoulders tense – as if he is expecting to see a group of men rumbling down the drive in their trucks.

Cal says goodbye to T-Dog and moves up beside Glenn. He tries to smile at her as she hauls herself into the empty chair at his side. It comes out more as a grimace, his discomfort apparent.

"You don't think we should kill him," Cal says plainly.

Glenn sputters, "no. It's not that."

"You're just having second thoughts?" She asks.

"I just – I mean, how did we get here?"

She stares out across the fields, towards a tent tucked away in the grass. "I don't know," she mutters. "Hell of a thing: the end of the world."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Just a lot different than delivering pizzas, you know?"

They sit quietly, Glenn ringing the barrel of the watch rifle. Cal ignores him, her eyes casting across the camp; the long and empty road; the fields. She watches as Dale retreats from Daryl's makeshift encampment. She hadn't even realized he'd been there, tucked carefully behind the tent.

"He's going around to everyone," Glenn explains at her confusion. "Rick gave him the day."

"To do what?"

"To see if anyone would agree with him – to save Randall's life."

She watches Dale. She takes in the slouch of his shoulders, the wide brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes. He carries another rifle, a testament to his long endeavour to protect the camp – and even in a time of disagreement, he only looks to protect the camp from a different enemy than they were often accustomed to.

She subconsciously runs her hands along her pants as if to wipe away the red that stains her palms.

"Don't be afraid," she says. " _Forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell._ "

Glenn glances at her. "I uh -"

"My father always said that," she explains, still following Dale with her eyes. "Dale doesn't get that. He still thinks the world is black and white.

"He'll fight for what he believes in. He'll fight for goodness. He'll fight until he can't," she shakes her head. "I just hope he realizes his fight isn't for survival. It's for something that doesn't really exist anymore."

Glenn swallows heavily. "What's that?"

Cal shifts in the chair, her eyes moving towards the trees, and the faint curl of smoke in the distance. "Humanity – as it was. As Dale remembers it. The only hope we have is to survive with some semblance of goodness, but not all of it."

"And if we kill Randall?"

"Rick was right, Glenn. If we let him go, what's to say he won't hurt others? It's twisted and it's fucked up, but we can't do nothing."

They sit in silence, both of them mulling over the daunting truth that lay before them.

"Is it cowardice?" Glenn whispers. "If we let him go, are we cowards for not killing him? But if we kill him, are we cowards for doing it?"

Cal shrugs. "Or is it bravery?"

Glenn's eyes are red, his face pale. She can imagine tears running down his cheeks. "Maybe it's a bit of both," he suggests softly.

Glenn eventually leaves, politely excusing himself at Maggie's beckoning from the house. Cal takes up the discarded rifle, her eyes filtering across the field – the house, the long and empty road, the fields and Daryl's tent.

She isn't surprised when Dale finds her. She isn't surprised when he clambers up beside her and settles down on the other free chair. For a long moment they sit in silence.

She knows what he wants to say.

He tugs his hat low over his face, and rubs at the pink skin on the back of his neck. His eyes are dark; expression tight as he takes in the camp and the people slugging miserably through the summer heat.

Dale's voice quakes. "Are we worth a young man's life?"

It's more than basic math. It's more than the ruthless calculus of war. His question isn't simple – it's the hardest question she's ever been asked.

Cal wipes the sweat from her brow, and looks out across the fields. The top of the RV is warm – warmer even than beside the fire down below. She tugs at her damp scarf, grimacing as it peels away from her neck.

"If we do this," he says. "If we take his life – if we allow Rick to take his life -, we're giving something up of ourselves. We're letting a piece of who we are fall away. We're letting this new world, this harsh and cold and awful place claim us for itself."

He shakes his head, his eyes wide and his bewilderment clearly writ across his face. Cal doesn't meet his eyes; she looks out across the field and watches Daryl's tent squat idly in the tall grasses. "If we let go, we're admitting that there is no going back from here."

Cal bites at her thumb. "Maybe we can't go back," she offers.

Dale shakes his head, "I can't believe that. I can't believe that we would just give up so easily."

"Maybe they don't see it as giving up," she says. Dale looks at her in disbelief. "Maybe they're giving up that part of themselves so they can _survive_."

"But is it worth it?" He asks. "Is our survival important if our humanity dies?"

Cal blinks, "some people think so."

"I don't," Dale's resolve is tight in his voice. "I _can't._ What is mankind if we haven't our humanity? Are we animals? I wouldn't see my friends, my _family,_ become nothing more than beasts looking only for their own we go down this path... "

Cal doesn't know what to say. She can't find words that will appease him. She is hardly a moral compass; she is hardly more than the very thing Dale murmurs about in abjection.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

Dale laughs softly; it is a bitter and twisted sound. "No," he says. "I am."

He leaves her there atop the RV, staring off into the distance past the camp and fields, to the dead labyrinth of Atlanta. She imagines a woman and child sitting beside her, and what might have been if she had let them in.

* * *

Later, Andrea offers to take over watch, but Cal declines without a glance. She can't look away from the dark clouds retreating beyond the horizon. The other woman sighs and moves away towards the house, "well, if you change your mind!"

Rick eventually clambers up beside her, and Cal offers him a small nod as he settles into a chair.

"We're gathering in a few hours. We're going to discuss Randall."

She nods, and when he doesn't leave she casts him an inquisitive glance.

Rick leans forward in his chair. "Dale told me you were thinking about leaving," he says.

Cal nearly scoffs. There was a part of her that was unsurprised that Dale had sought to warn Rick of her impending departure; there was a part of her that was surprised he'd do it after their previous discussion. A part of her couldn't blame him; he was disappointed and had sought clarification – that of which she had resolutely refused him.

"I am," she nods.

Rick nods. "When?"

"After Randall."

"You know you're welcome here," Rick is quiet as he studies her, and she sits still under his scrutiny. "If you change your mind..-"

"I'll keep that in mind." Cal bites at her fingernail. She looks down at the camp, and the people milling about. She doesn't want to tell him that his group is floundering; she doesn't want to tell him that people are going to die if it continues to shatter. It'd be useless anyways, she thinks to herself as she watches him scan the quiet of camp, he already knows. "I might try for Macon," she says instead, wincing at how hopeless she sounds.

"Your parents are there," Rick looks at her.

She nods.

"I hope you find them."

"Thanks," she says quietly, unsurprised at the sincerity in his voice.

"Your dad was ex-military?"

"Retired," she murmurs, remembering the ceremony and the honour and the tears of relief her mother had shed.

"Any siblings?" The question is hard. He wants to know, but he doesn't want to delve. She understands; it's something that they would ask one another in the old world – something they would share over coffee and laughter.

"No," she shrugs. It was hard for him to ask, but it isn't a hard one for her to answer. She watches as Rick swallows in relief.

"But you've lost people." It isn't a question.

Her breath catches in her throat at his boldness. She glances up and meets his calm, soft eye. Empathy pours off of him – that and understanding. She had heard of Rick's reunion with his wife and son, of his struggle in the new world to find understanding. He had told her himself on their first excursion together – one of the many topics of discussion that had arisen when it became apparent Cal was less than forthcoming about her background.

The empathy hurts – it doesn't feel or look like pity, but she can't really think of what else it might be. It hurts her. Everyone had lost someone; everyone would lose someone still. Who was she to deserve this moment?

She blinks, glancing away from his intense gaze towards her hands. She regards them carefully; her right, and then her left. She's running her hands over her left hand like something is missing from it.

Rick notices, and he stills. He looks to his own hands. To his dirtied wedding band shining lowly in the light.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"It happened long before all of this." He glances up to find her staring off towards the horizon. Her expression is impassive; her gaze, when it finally does turn to him, is blank.

Rick rises, running his palms along the front of his jeans. He offers her a nod; he offers her the silence of her watch. He climbs down from the RV. Cal watches him head off to the house, hand on his holster – ever the Sheriff.

* * *

The group had been told that the young man they recovered from town had been one of the few to chase Cal through the streets. They had been told what Daryl had learned. They had been told to steel themselves to the fact that Randall had to be dealt with.

Randall knew Hershel. He knew Maggie. He was party to unsavoury people, and had taken to their more illicit activities with vigour.

Cal hadn't told them that he had almost caught her. She hadn't told them that he had yelled in her ear, his excitement the only thing that had kept her moving and breathing and fighting.

When the group gathers again in the failing light of day, Rick recounts this information to them all. The quiet of the group is unnerving; they listen and wonder and mull over the boy tucked away in the back room.

Cal stands near the door, her eyes trained on Rick and Shane.

"If we do this, we need to be ready to live with the consequences."

Carol opts out. She lifts her hands and leaves – she doesn't want any part in it; she doesn't want to decide if he should live or die. Cal watches her go, remembering Glenn murmuring of bravery and cowardice.

"Some of us aren't ready to do that, Rick," Dale speaks up after Carol leaves.

Shane's eyes darken, "let me tell you somethin', Dale. If we let that asshole go, he might just lead his boys right back here. You think you can live with the consequences of that?"

The older man's face hardens. "If we kill this man – this _boy –_ we are no better than they are."

"And if we do nothing?" Rick hisses. "What are we then?"

"Cowards," Shane replies.

Dale shakes his head, "is it cowardice to stand up for what you believe in? Is it cowardice to want a better life than what the world is demanding we _accept_?"

Rick's jaw tenses and he runs a hand over his face.

"Think of the example you're setting for Carl," Dale pleads one last time.

Rick turns away.

Andrea speaks up suddenly, voicing her decision to support Dale. The two of them turn to T-Dog and Glenn sitting uncomfortably on a loveseat.

"T-Dog," Dale's voice is imploring.

"It needs to happen, man," T-Dog mutters, unable to meet Dale's imploring gaze. "We aren't safe with him alive."

Dale turns to Glenn, his eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, Dale," he murmurs and looks away.

"This isn't justice," Dale mutters, moving away from the group. His disgust and disappointment clear across his face. "This is murder." He moves to leave, brushing past Cal with a misty eyes. He pauses behind her, his breath low as he murmurs to someone – Daryl.

"You're right. This group is broken."

The door breathes shut behind him. The room is silent.

"It'll happen right away," Rick murmurs.

One by one they trickle away. Cal turns to leave and nearly bumps into Daryl. They both take a step back – she notes the pink alighting his cheeks. "Sorry," he mumbles and steps out of her way.

"What did you say to Dale?" She asks, her voice a quiet hush as the room empties out.

Daryl blinks and then shrugs, "told him the truth. Group's broken."

She nods slowly, her eyes dropping to the breast pockets of his vest.

Daryl had said that finding Sophia had been important – he had said that he had tried to fix the group. She thinks of the barn; of the group that had stood as a firing line, and of the group that had stood apart. They were never together; never united. When Sophia had appeared they had splintered before her eyes; strangers breaking like glass.

"I don't care anymore," he says.

For a long moment they stand there in quiet – neither moves. It's only as her eyes drop lower that she notices the white bandages spread across his knuckles.

He notices the direction of her eyes and tucks his hand out of sight.

"I think you do," she murmurs. And then she's brushing past him, warm like the rolling breath of a thunderstorm, leaving him alone in the living room.

He stands in silence, wondering if she had been there at all.

* * *

Rick is staring at his hands. At the lines etched in the large oak table. At Hershel who waits patiently, and Shane who stands expectantly behind him. At Cal who stares out the kitchen window, and Daryl who stands near her.

A single shell sits beside his Magnum on the table; a gleaming sword or insipid dagger.

"Capital punishment used to be a hanging," Rick murmurs.

"Infection has set in," Hershel says. "He's weak."

"I'm thinking he'll manage to stand for a little while," Shane snaps.

Rick shakes his head and reaches out, grabbing both Magnum and shell from the table. He looks around the room as he loads the gun, his eyes tired as he observes the few who stand with him. His eyes finally land on Hershel. Rick pushes up from the chair and turns to regard the closed door down the hall.

He blinks. His jaw tightens. He sighs.

"Hershel?" The question need not be said aloud. The loose gun in his hand is enough.

Hershel shuts his eyes and nods.

Rick moves, Shane and Daryl close behind him. The others still; pausing as the three men drift away.

They enter the room to find Randall slouched in his pillows, grey skinned and sweating. Shane and Daryl help him drag the boy from the house, across the fields to the barn. Randall groans, slipping in and out of consciousness as his leg is jostled. They set him down against one of the cool barn walls.

"I don't want to die," Randall moans.

Rick stills, his jaw setting. The gun is heavy in his hand, and he looks down at it.

It should be heavy, he thinks. It should weigh more than the world.

He moves up beside the young man, the Magnum lifting to press into his forehead. "Any last words?" He murmurs.

Randall coughs, "I don't want to die," he repeats.

One moment – a breath. He remembers Cal's warning the other night: _don't hesitate._

He blinks.

"You don't need to do all the heavy lifting," a voice says.

Fingers curl around the barrel of his gun, and he realizes there is a tremor racing up his arm. The gun is heavy – so heavy that he nearly drops it. Daryl is looking at him, something quiet in his eyes that speaks more loudly than the huffing and puffing of Shane a few feet away.

Daryl draws a pistol from his hip.

He doesn't hesitate.

* * *

Cal is sliding from the house when it happens – a sharp crack igniting the sky, and the sharp flash lighting up the dark belly of the barn. She pauses and waits, her breath tight in her chest.

Shane comes storming from the barn. Moments later, Rick and Daryl follow. Between themselves they heave Randall's body onto the twisted pile of dead bodies. They follow soon thereafter, murky silhouettes in the dusk.

She moves up alongside the camp, watching in quiet as Shane moves through the grasses. She stands in the shadow, listening to him mutter to himself. The tension in his shoulders is enough to make her take a step back.

"He almost didn't do it," he hisses, and Cal realizes with a jolt that Lori has bled from the shadows to his side. "He hesitated."

Cal blinks slowly at him, and then glances over his shoulder at Rick and Daryl moving towards the camp. She wasn't surprised; they had all but forced the idea of Randall's execution on him. "Who did it then?" Lori asks.

Shane runs a hand over his head, a short laugh on his tongue. "Daryl."

Cal glances sharply towards the barn, her breath catching in her throat.

"If he won't protect you and Carl-" Shane blinks suddenly, a hand drifting to cradle his cheek where Lori had struck him. She is hissing at him, telling him to be quiet. Their argument drifts to vehement whispers. Carol peers out from the window of the RV, her eyes wide and wet. Dale sits forlornly atop the RV, pretending to ignore Shane's acquiescing murmurs of desperation.

Cal turns suddenly when a hand cradles her bicep. She glances back to meet Daryl's eyes, his lips thin. She blinks in surprise; he had slipped so easily into the shadows and found her.

He jerks his chin towards the open field, the silhouette of his tent squatting in the dark. She follows him a short distance from the RV before she stops, before she refuses to move any further into the shadowy night.

"You did it," she says.

Daryl hesitates, his shoulders tightening as he turns to regard her. "Yeah," he nods.

She nods, not sure what to say. For a long moment they stand there in quiet. She tucks her hands around her body; he chews thoughtfully at a piece of grass stalk. Her eyes drift to his hands, to the white bandages wrapped around his knuckles.

"Do you want to be alone?"

The way she says it makes him pause. There is more to it than the here and the now. There is more to it than him or her. There is more to it than his tent set off from the rest, away from the group he thinks is broken. There is more to it than him simply wanting to be alone with what he's just done.

He mulls it over. He considers the way she watches him; her eyes large in the dark. She's quiet even as he moves towards her. The sound of his own footsteps makes him stop – he walks like a thunder storm roiling overhead.

He hesitates.

"I don't know," he says.

She blinks. "Me either."


	14. Chapter 14

"Do you want to be alone?"

"I don't know," he says.

They stand there in the dark, the moon casting a silvered glow across the field stretching around them. In the distance she can hear the crack of the camp fire, and the muted voices of the rest of the group as they drift out of their hiding holes. The silence is a telling symptom of their decisions, their choices. It's a fine mix of regret and guilt; they mull over the gunshot still echoing in their minds.

They've just killed a man.

"Why'd you do it?" Cal asks.

Daryl stiffens, not quite sure what to say. He had seen Rick holding his gun to the boy's head; he had watched as a man wavered under the weight of the hand he had been dealt. Rick wasn't a man to suffer his own choices, but the choices of others. He didn't celebrate himself as a false king, but did what had to be done to ensure the survival of his group. In that moment Daryl had watched the group's decision weigh on him. Rick had hesitated, splintering under the girth of his own kindness. He would have pulled the trigger in the end, his resolve nigh infallible, but eventually he would have shattered under the constant barrage to his morality. Rick hadn't asked for help, but Daryl had known he had needed it.

"Rick shouldn't have to do it alone," he rumbles softly.

Cal remembers Rick's quiet words, his confession of killing the two men in Patton's Bar, and his willingness to do it again if necessary. He was a good man – a strong man dealt a heavy hand. He would make the choices no one else would; he would try where no one else could.

"That's a kindness he deserves," she blinks up at him.

Daryl feels a chill curl down his spine at her words, almost as if he's pleased by her recognition. "He's good for this group, even if they can't always see that."

"But you do."

Daryl's lips thin, and he looks away. "Someone's gotta have his back."

Cal glances over her shoulder towards the RV, towards the voices whispering fervently in the shadows. Shane and Lori argue quietly, though their voices carry across the grassy field. Daryl follows her gaze, and for a moment they stand acknowledging an unsaid truth - Shane would not be the one to support Rick.

He never had been. He never would be.

"Shane is dangerous," Cal murmurs quietly. "I hardly know the man, and I can see that."

Daryl is quiet.

"You need to make sure nothing happens," she says, finally turning back to him.

"What would I care?" His eyes narrow.

"You care what happens to this group."

He scoffs and turns away.

"You care, Daryl. And you know Rick is the only one that will help them. He can't be alone."

He stiffens as he feels her move closer to him.

"I'm leaving," she finally admits.

"Youwant to be alone," it isn't a question.

When she doesn't reply right away he almost scoffs.

"I don't know," she says.

He blinks, but he doesn't turn to look at her. "Why?"

" _Why?"_ She asks, incredulous.

He shrugs, still staring out across the field with her at his back. "Why would you leave?"

She is silent for a time, and eventually he turns to regard her. She stands sheepishly in front of him, staring at her hands, her lip tugged thoughtfully into her mouth.

He knows why he would leave. He knows what would drive him away – and had. But she was right; he saw in Rick what the others did not. He saw in Shane what Rick would not see. There was a stark difference between the two men, and without a doubt their world would crumble if the lesser of the two managed to usurp control.

While a part of him still wants to turn tail and flee, her words were a tether anchoring him.

" _You need to make sure nothing happens. He can't be alone."_

He hates it. He hates that he doesn't owe Rick anything, but something still keeps him there. He hates that he doesn't understand it at all – the only thing that made sense were her words, _her_ request.

And for that he turns his anger and frustration and confusion to _her._

He's opening his mouth to yell at her, to explode and tell her she's a dumb bitch when it happens. A soft concession in the night.

"I'm afraid," she whispers to him.

Words escape him. He stares down at her in confusion.

"This group isn't safe. Groups _aren't_ safe. Since the beginning of this whole thing, all I've found or seen with others is death – people scrambling over one another to find more time."

"So you'd just leave?" Daryl asks.

"I don't feel safe here," she defends herself. There were more words she wanted to use, more things she wanted to say. She could see their goodness shattering, their very foundation crumbling, and where Rick would take it upon himself to scavenge what he could, she wanted to get away. To leave them tumbling into the dark so that she was not dragged down with them.

She wasn't any better than the others – than the people who pushed and shoved and murdered just for more time.

"I'm afraid," she repeats.

Daryl's lips thin, his eyes narrow. He had found her there in the woods without a clue which way her feet were, and he had heard of how her previous travelling companion had left her for dead. That, coupled with the men from town, surely left her with a concept of the new world.

He thinks back on the dog that Dale had mentioned, the one that had lived behind a dumpster. Something had set a fear in the dog, something that a bit of kindness had remedied.

But who was Daryl to fix something broken, when he was so fucked up himself?

He looks down at his hands, bloodied through the gauze wrapped so carefully around his knuckles. He remembers her concern, her knitted brow. _You should get those looked at._

He had punched Randall after she left the room. He had punched Randall to stop him from speaking about her. He had punched Randall for her, and for the women that the boy had hurt – had broken. While he had punched Randall, he had thought back on her muttered words of a man leaving her for dead in the middle of the road.

He blinks, flexing his hands within the wrapped bandages.

"When are you leaving?" He asks.

She looks back at him, her eyes wide. "I don't know."

He nods and looks back at his hand. Cal follows his gaze.

"You should get those looked at," she mumbles red faced. "You've bled through your bandages."

* * *

They are in the Greene's kitchen, the lights casting a dim glow across the table where they sit. The house is silent around them, the residences having only just settled in for the night.

Daryl sits awkwardly at the table, tugging at the bandages with a grimace. He had pointedly ignored her offers to help, setting upon the task himself with a defiant vigour.

"It's just been me this whole time," he had groused. "Just me. I don't need no help."

Cal had left him to it, choosing instead to sit back in her chair and watch quietly as he struggled.

And struggles still.

"God damn, fucking thing-"

She almost laughs, but quiets herself by burying her mouth into her hand. Her shoulders still shake – enough so that he glances at her and scowls.

"It ain't fucking funny," he hisses.

Cal holds up a hand in apology, her eyes light with mirth. "Of course it's not," she says.

Her glowers at her before returning to the task at hand.

For a few moments longer she listens to him pick and bite and tug at the gauze, cussing lowly under his breath.

"For fuck sakes-"

Her hands coil around his, stilling the impatience there. He tries to pull away, but her fingers are strong by his pulse. She ignores him, his murmured confusion. She simply tucks herself in front of him and begins to peel the bloodied gauze from his hand, trying not to falter under his careful scrutiny. He is silent as she works, his dark eyes watchful. She fetches a fresh cloth from the pantry and splashes it lightly with peroxide.

For a moment she thinks he'll pull away.

"I've had worse," he grunts.

She blinks and then picks up his hand, carefully cradling his palm within her own. She apologizes as she touches the damp cloth to his raw skin, wincing as it sizzles.

He doesn't flinch.

Instead, he watches her. The shadows cast themselves across her face, lending truth to how tired she is. He can still see the lumps and bruises from her altercation only a week ago, though they hide carefully beneath a layer of dust and sweat.

For a while they say nothing. She cleans his hands with a slowness, her hands fumbling occasionally as if unsure of how he'll react. He almost says something, but the worried cast to her expression holds his tongue.

She folds his hands over in her own, searching his palm with wandering eyes. The callouses there, the scars and scrapes, lend her the truth of his nature. She dabs at a small cut near his wrist. He doesn't pull away.

When it is done, she wraps his hand in gauze. He pulls his hands back to his lap and scowls.

"Thanks," he mumbles.

She nods and collects the loose items of her craft, cradling them to her as she stands. She doesn't say another word, she leaves the room in silence, only the door breathing behind her bids her farewell.

Daryl stares down at his hands. It burns where the peroxide had touched his skin.

And where she had held his hand in her own.

* * *

The next morning is a bleak affair. The aftermath of Randall's death sees the group quiet as they go about breakfast, their eyes only occasionally straying to Rick, Shane, or Daryl. Carl is the only one unaffected by the whole affair, as seen by his childish protests as his mother attempts to urge him to eat.

"Carl, eat your eggs."

"No."

"Carl..-"

"No."

"Carl," Rick finally interjects. "Listen to your mother."

Everyone misses the heated look Shane passes Lori.

As Carl settles into his breakfast, the group goes quiet once more. They fall into a bleak silence, only the clinking of cutlery against plastic plates any sign of life. Eventually Carol begins a dish tub, and one by one the group finishes and tucks their dirtied utensils away. They drift off thereafter, returning to duties long forgotten upon Cal and Randall's untimely arrival.

Cal is the last to tuck her plate into the bin, and she offers Carol a sheepish grimace at having made her wait. The older woman smiles tentatively, and her eyes dart behind Cal before returning. Her eyes are light, her lips quivering and tightening and trembling as she rolls words over her tongue.

"He shouldn't be alone," Carol murmurs, echoing the same thing Cal had only just said to Daryl.

Cal blinks uncertainly, glancing over her shoulder. Daryl is weaving through the field from his tent. Cal turns back to Carol. She had seen the older woman pursue Daryl through the camp on several occasions – they had an apparent friendship, though Cal had suspected more than that.

Carol's words push that assumption firmly aside.

"No," Cal agrees. "He shouldn't."

"No one should be alone," Carol's voice is filled with enough intensity that Cal's eyebrows rise in wonder at the woman's pointed look. Carol had never come across as forceful, but rather a soft and meek person that had, surprisingly, survived at all. The woman's sudden strength and conviction is enough to make Cal blush.

"You think you're doing what's right in leaving," Carol murmurs, her eyes falling away as if she's embarrassed by her own backbone. "But you're not, and you'll end up hurting not just yourself."

Carol's bravery deflates, and she offers Cal a tired smile.

"Just think about that."

"Okay," Cal blinks. She turns and walks away, feeling her conviction falter.

She moves towards the Greene's house, faltering only when she sees Hershel, Daryl, Rick and Shane tucked around a map on the porch.

"Your people are welcome to move into the house," Hershel finally offers to Rick. "But we don't have enough supplies for everyone."

"We need to start soon if we're going to be comfortable through the winter," Rick explains.

Shane's face is dark. "We can't be sure that Randall's people won't just show up-"

"So only send a handful of people at a time," Daryl growls.

Shane huffs and runs a hand over his bare head.

Rick's jaw is tight as he mulls over Hershel's words. He sets forward on his hands, staring down at the map. "Then we need to go out," he holds up a hand to silence Shane. "We _need_ supplies."

"Remember what happened _last time?"_ Shane hisses.

"Then we'll only send a _handful of people,"_ Rick says sharply, all to familiar with the attack that had happened on the camp. "This isn't up for discussion."

"No Rick, I think it is."

Daryl glances between the two men, and his eyes finally alight upon Cal moving slowly towards the porch. He blinks, expression light as she meets his gaze.

"I'll go," he says to Rick, ignoring Shane's dark scowl.

Rick's shoulders sag in a sudden relief. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Daryl nods.

"I'll go too," Cal offers, surprising both Rick and Shane at her sudden appearance. "I'd like to help before I go."

Rick considers her for a moment before he catches Daryl's eye. The other man nods.

"Alright," Rick says.

"No," Shane interjects. "Rick, you can't be serious man. Sending one of our best shot-"

"Who else should I send, Shane?" Rick's jaw is tight. "Dale? Carol? _Lori?"_

Shane's jaw snaps shut, his eyes suddenly vivid with colour. "And who are we going to lose if you don't? Dale? Carol? _Lori?"_ Shane bites back. "How many more do we need to lose for you to see—"

"Enough," Hershel grimaces, rallying behind Rick.

Shane huffs, his eyes locked with Rick's. A long and tense moment passes. Everyone holds their breath. Finally Shane scoffs and moves off, stalking away towards the RV with an angry growl. The tension crumbles; the group lets out a collective breath.

Rick watches until Shane is out of sight, and then he turns to Cal and Daryl with a sigh. "You'll head out as soon as possible. I don't want you out in the dark.

"I'd say you hit the highway. Collect as much as you can from the cars before we start heading out any further," Rick says. "We don't know how far those men are, or how many there might be. We need to keep a low profile."

* * *

They run their hands in the dry dust of the road and rub their palms across their necks and through their hair. The sweat clinging to their skin mixes with it, casting a swirling pattern of mud beneath their jaws and around their collars.

"I knew you had a group," Cal explains to Daryl. Rick stands off to the side to see them off, listening intently. "From the first moment I saw you, I knew you had a _home._ "

"How?" Rick asks, his brow furrowing in consternation.

She looks pointedly at Rick, at his freshly shaven jaw. "He was too clean."

Rick rubs at his chin, suddenly conscious. He remembers the men in Patton's Bar, and how easily they had assumed they had somewhere to live. It hadn't made sense at the time; it had caught them off guard, and had probably confirmed to the men what they had wondered aloud.

"If they get close enough to the truck, they'll know," she says. "But if we're looking to bring stuff back we can't afford the room."

"Then we ain't gonna let them get close enough," Daryl grunts, rearranging one of his dirtier shirts around his shoulders. His crossbow is tucked into his arm.

Rick nods.

"Be careful," he says.

As Daryl moves to pass them by, Rick turns to Cal with shadowed eyes, the weight of Randall's death still an obvious burden. "Keep an eye on him," he murmurs, nodding in the direction of Daryl's retreating back. "It isn't easy."

"Okay," she agrees.

"He doesn't really have anyone."

"If he needs someone to talk to, I'll talk to him," she reassures him.

Rick nods. "Be careful," he repeats, the words resounding with a different meaning.

"We ain't got all day!" Daryl grunts from afar, and Cal gives Rick one last look – and a pained smile – before she hurriedly moves off after him.

The truck they take belonged to a man named Otis. Patricia is in the kitchen window when it starts up, and she disappears with a shocked look on her face and her hand held to her heart. Cal watches her fade from the kitchen window – almost as if the woman is an apparition.

Rick waves them off down the drive, his eyes dark as they rumble around the corner of trees.

For a long while they weave down the old country road. Neither says a word, they are lost to the dark wood surrounding them, looming before them, and behind them. Cal cannot find words, her eyes search the trees for any semblance of man or walker. Daryl drives them onwards, his attention split between the road and forest.

"There," Cal murmurs, and Daryl glances in the rear view window to see a single walker come stumbling from the copse. It shambles listlessly behind them, its gait awkward.

They ignore it and drive on.

Eventually the wood bleeds away, and they find themselves on the edge of the highway. Before them stretches the vast empire of the old world; the concrete veins that had once pumped with so much life lay silent, the old and forgotten vehicles now dusty tombs.

Daryl edges carefully onto the road, and swings the truck about. It's nose faces back towards the road.

They dip from the truck, their breath tight in their chests as they land upon the sun baked concrete of the old world. Around them the highway is quiet.

Cal wanders towards the nose of the truck, her eyes pinched against the sun as she looks north and then south. Daryl slinks towards an old abandoned station wagon, his eyes taking in the small pile of food and running paint across the windshield.

"What is that?" Cal's voice is so quiet he almost doesn't hear her.

"Somethin' we left for Sophia," he grouses, dragging his hand across the paint, wiping it away, and pulling the few items into his arms. He dumps them into the bed of the truck and turns around to take in the rest of the vehicles. They had scoured them that first night on the highway, but there had been so many items they hadn't been looking for, or had found wanting.

"Someone should be on watch," she looks at his crossbow nestled in his arms, her own hand sitting idly on the hilt of her knife.

"You sure you don't want-"

"I'm sure," she says.

He nods and climbs atop the cab, glaring down the highway.

It is slow work. The first few cars offer little more than suitcases of wrinkled, musty clothes. Cal hauls a few bags to the back of the truck, picking and choosing the heavier garments that would be of more use through the colder months. It seems that most of the people who had long abandoned their cars hadn't the foresight to see the impending apocalypse – everything tucked in the trunks or back seats are little more than a few changes of clothes, or a few magazines. Cal grabs what newspapers she can, already anticipating the chill of winter deep in her bones, and the fire that they would surely need to chase it away.

By the time the summer heat begins to pulse around them, the back of the truck is half full. Cal is tugging at the bandana around her neck, grimacing at how it drags across her wet skin. From where she scrounges in the front seat of a mini-van, she can see Daryl facing away from her – the back of his shirt is dark with sweat.

Cal sighs, brushing her fingers over the blue air conditioning button on the console. She remembers the few moments of reprieve from the heat, when she and Merle would justify a moment of cool air licking their skin.

She almost laughs at herself for reminiscing so fondly of the man that had almost killed her when Daryl's gruff voice cuts through the air laced with acid.

"What're you laughing about?"

She blinks, realizing she had indeed been shaking with laughter. "I was just thinking about the asshole that left me for dead," she says back.

Daryl turns away, looking off down the road. "What about him?"

Cal sobers up, remembering the moments with Merle that had made her feel alive – _human._ Subtle things came to mind: the fear she had felt when she had first found him near death on the side of the road; the sadness she had felt when he had discovered his brother was most likely dead; and the tension that propagated their final encounter.

They had needed one another, in one way or another. She had tended and cared for Merle, and Merle had given her camaraderie when she hadn't realized she had needed it.

"It was shit when he was there," she grumbles, digging into the back seat. "But it was better than being alone."

Daryl's lips twitch.

All he can think about is Merle.


	15. Chapter 15

Merle hadn't been around much when he'd been growing up. He was always off on some binge, or crumpled in a gutter somewhere chucking up his own guts. The man wasn't having fun if he was sober. It was a cold and hard truth, Daryl realized at an early age, that Merle adopted from their father.

He almost smirks at Cal's words, at her silent admission. It is painfully familiar – he recalls having said nearly the exact same thing only just a few weeks prior. _It was shit when he was there, but it was better than being alone._

The scars on his back were a testament to Merle's long absences, to a time when even his mother couldn't hide him in her arms – God rest her soul. Only Merle had been able to stop their father's relentless rages, and that had been entirely due to a violence all his own. While he had never laid a hand on Daryl, there had still been a pain, and there had still been a hurt left all the same.

Daryl had thought he had hated Merle. For a long while he had thought so – until Merle would leave. Merle always left. He would find an excuse - whether it was on account of their father or Daryl's being a _pussy_ – and hightail it out of dodge. He always fled away to the city, to crawl back into the gutter or the crook of a whore's arm. He would leave Daryl behind, and in that he left him alone.

Entirely and utterly alone.

Daryl almost says something about Merle, but he stops himself. Cal is looking away down the road, her fingers plucking at the hem of her shirt. The silvered duct tape peaking out from beneath makes him look away sharply; she glances at him, her eyes dancing across the red peaking out from beneath his collar.

"Did _you_ ever think about leaving?" She asks.

Daryl chews on the inside of his cheek. He had thought about leaving the moment he and Merle had joined up with the group back in Atlanta - that was until he had seen the Napalm raining down in the streets. It was only when the world truly turned to shit that he realized being alone just wasn't plausible – if he left, he may have very well never seen a living person again.

That desperation as a child, the loneliness due to Merle's absences, reared its head.

Anger had guided him once; a rash decision to find his brother and then leave. Only Rick had placated him enough to stay; only Rick's careful words had guided him down from up on high. He had distanced himself, but he had never really looked out across the dark fields of the dying world and thought he would be better off by himself.

Even after the CDC. Or the Barn. Sophia.

Or Cal and her careful words of being safe in her loneliness. It had been a temptation – but one smothered so readily by the memory of Merle's abandonment in his earlier years.

He never wanted to be truly alone again.

"Not really," he scowls.

She blinks at him, at his honesty. She can hear the subtle judgement in his voice.

"Some people are better off alone," she mumbles back.

Daryl shakes his head. "Yeah, like the dead," he snaps back.

For a long moment the two are silent as they consider one another.

Cal rubs at the scarf wrapped around her neck, tugging at the damp fabric with a noncommittal shrug. "Come on," she says. "We have more to do."

And like that, Merle is discarded.

There is a deep quiet about them. A silence that sees them on into the afternoon. Cal returns to rifling through what cars they can and shoving what she can scavenge into the back of Otis' truck. The afternoon sun is blistering, and soon after both are panting into the day and wiping sweat from their brows.

After a switching out with Daryl to take watch, Cal notices his aloof and somewhat distracted focus. He seems far away, as if he's no longer tethered to the earth. Rick's quiet concern for Daryl's well being ripens in her mind, taking form as she notices his lacking attention. In the short time she had known Daryl she had quickly known him to be observant in an almost Sherlockian manner.

Cal watches him from atop Otis' truck; the way he slinks between the vehicles and peers in the dusted windows is almost uncaring.

"What is it?" She asks, wincing when he blinks to life from his stupor.

"Nothin'."

"Doesn't look like nothing," she says.

He grunts and manoeuvres behind a truck, effectively blocking her from view.

She calls out after him, turning away from the truck so she can better look on down the highway.

Daryl's silence is enough of an answer.

"Rick's worried about you," she suddenly says.

"He ain't gotta be," Daryl grouses back.

"You just killed a man."

"It had to be done."

"Daryl."

Daryl ignores her and stares off into the distance, his jaw tight as he regards the winding river of rusted metal and deteriorating rubber. The world is quiet around them. He moves further behind the shadow of the transport truck, winding his way into the labyrinth of rotting cars. He doesn't hear her footsteps, but he knows from her silence that she has climbed down from Otis' truck to follow him.

They move through the graveyard like two ghosts, weaving across the concrete in silence. He's quiet, and she's silent; their footsteps roll across the dusted road like whispers. The wind breathes across his sweaty back, and he stops. He knows she's there behind him, waiting for him to turn and say something.

Anything.

"Just leave me the hell alone," he snarls suddenly, turning to her.

She blinks up at him, her eyes wide as she takes in the violence he shrouds himself in. It's a blanket – a shield against the unknown. He doesn't know what to feel and so he turns to aggression.

"No," she says.

It's all she says.

For a long moment they stand staring at one another. Daryl glowers darkly; Cal stares up blandly. He bristles at her apparent nonchalance, as if he's not standing there like a rolling thunderstorm – as if he's nothing but a boy having a tantrum.

"I can wait," the words slip from her lips as if she knows her patience bothers him.

Daryl grunts and turns from her, refusing to look her in the eye and say that he doesn't care – that it doesn't touch him. He isn't weak, he wants to say. He isn't going to crumble and break and shatter under the fact that he took a man's life. He did it for a friend – for someone who he could see was beginning to crumble, who was beginning to tremble under the weight of his burden. He did it for the people Randall had hurt, and for Cal who had sat so stoically under Randall's scrutiny.

If he had to live with that burden, if he had to take it upon himself for others, he would.

"I did what I had to do," he says, his tone defensive.

"You did," she agrees quietly.

"And I'd do it again," he grouses.

"Why?"

The question catches him off guard. It's more a challenge than a query, posed more for himself than her own clarification.

" _Why?"_ He repeats with narrowed eyes.

She nods, expression expectant. "You're not a murderer, Daryl."

"You don't know me."

"No, but I can tell the difference between you and Shane. You're not a murderer," she repeats.

Daryl glowers at her darkly.

"You care about the group. You care what happens to these people. You try to distance yourself because you're afraid of caring. Because caring means you have something to lose."

He snarls at her, moving closer, bullying her space with a sudden aggression. She steps back and stares up at him wildly.

"You. Don't. Know. Me," he repeats, rasping his words like sandpaper across her ears.

"No," she says quietly. "But I know someone like that."

She pushes past him and retreats back to the truck, leaving him standing there amongst a row of ghosts.

* * *

They arrive back at the farm with little fanfare. Everyone helps unload the truck, sorting the items for later division and distribution amongst the group. Rick holds and pats Cal and Daryl's shoulders, his eyes light with relief at their return and their support.

"Thank you," he mutters quietly, passing Daryl and Cal to run his hands across a pile of blankets, or tug appreciatively at a basket of clothes. He marvels at the small things; a full tube of toothpaste, or a bag of medicine. Always his eyes return to them, appreciative. "Thank you," he repeats.

* * *

There had been a time when sleep came softly in the night, but that had been a time of pink dresses and loose teeth – when dreams were of fairies and unicorns, and not hellish things crawling in the dark. A good sleep was a long forgotten ally; something she hadn't known in years.

And with the world the way it was, it wasn't surprising that she lay awake into the nights, sweating and gasping as nightmares became a reality.

She had dreamt of lightning and thunder; of rolling hills that glowed with grey light; of brown blood crusting on her hands; of a cop wandering into the dusk, whistling something disjointed and haunting. She had dreamt of a man dying, and his best friend clutching fervently at her hands. Of a flag folded neatly, and a ring slipping from her finger.

She had awoken, and crawled from her tent with a sigh. On watch, T-Dog had welcomed her offer of reprieve, his eyes gracious as he relinquished both rifle and chair as he moved from the RV to his tent in the distance. In the quiet of the dim night, she had sat in silence.

It isn't until the grey hours of the early morning that he finds her there atop the RV. Rick moves up beside her, slouching into the empty seat beside her with a sigh. For a long moment the two sit in silence, Rick marvelling at the familiarity of their meeting, until he clutches at his face and sighs loudly into his hands.

"You can take what you'd like," he says of the salvage from yesterday. Cal blinks in surprise. "It's the least we can do."

"Rick-"

"No," he says, holding up a hand.

She goes quiet. After a moment she nods.

"Thank you."

He nods in reply. "When were you thinking of leaving?"

"As soon as possible."

"I was thinking about heading out soon, there's a police station about thirty minutes away. Might get some guns and ammo. You're welcome to come. We could drop you off along the way if you'd like."

She's quiet for a moment, lips thin and eyes wide. Rick catches the expression, the hint of doubt that flashes across her face – as if she's not quite certain she wants to leave. He almost hopes she'll refuse, but she nods slowly. "Thank you," she says.

For a long moment the two are quiet, Rick wanting to ask her if she's certain of her decision to leave, and Cal wanting him to try and convince her otherwise. She recalls Carol and Daryl's quiet words, and Dale's blunt opinion. They were words that would have convinced her had she met them in another life, or another time; if doubt didn't gnaw so ferociously at her conscience; if Merle's betrayal wasn't so fresh.

"Daryl moved back," Rick shatters the quiet.

She blinks, "pardon?"

He nods down to the camp, to the circle of tents. It is only then that she realizes the wispy smoke from the treeline is gone, and Daryl's tent now squats only a short distance from the rest.

She doesn't say anything, instead she turns and looks out across the grassy fields towards the dark treeline, to the place he had once camped – alone.

* * *

When the sun finally crests the horizon, Glenn is the first to wake. He relieves Cal from watch, allowing her to go about her morning routine. Slowly, the rest of the group wakes, and day begins in a flourish of activity.

It becomes apparent early on that spirits have lifted. Despite the impromptu funeral only a few days previous, people exchange smiles and tentative words of happiness. Lori offers a soft smile over the camp fire, exclaiming over Beth's revival under the careful scrutiny of her father; T-Dog and Dale chuckle softly over a shared joke; Glenn and Maggie share a wistful morning of soft words atop the RV; and even Carol smiles, though it is hard pressed to touch her eyes. Only Daryl seems sour, though she supposes it has more to do with her words the day before – he catches her eye for only a moment before he turns away.

After scooping the last of her eggs into her mouth, Cal discards her dirty plate into the dishwater. She hesitates when she meets Carol's eyes, wincing as the woman's smile falls away to a quiet stare. She beelines for the house.

She feels like a coward.

It isn't until she's slipped in through the kitchen door that she breathes, and even then she freezes when she realizes she's stumbled in on an argument between Andrea and Lori. The two women crowd the kitchen, their eyes livid. They don't exchange words, but the intensity of their glares is enough to make Cal hesitate.

It is only when Lori catches sight of her over Andrea's shoulder that the two women stop. Smiles are quickly plastered across their faces, though the tension lining their shoulders tells a different story.

"Rick said I could take some things from yesterday's haul-"

"Oh!" Lori says, ushering her into the sitting room and to a pile of arranged clothing and piles of other goods. "He said you'd stop by."

"You're leaving?" Andrea asks, and Cal blinks at the woman's tone – wonder, appraisal, curiousity.

"Yeah," Cal nods, turning to pull a shirt and a pair of pants into her arms. She holds each against her body before shoving them under her arm. "

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No more sure than it's a good idea to stay."

This makes Andrea pause, her eyes light with understanding. "I get that," she says, sincerity in her words. She doesn't embellish on her own desire to leave, but watches Cal wistfully as the other woman picks through a pile of jackets for the coming fall.

Lori excuses herself, and after a few moments Andrea joins Cal, rifling through several small piles and relieving them of a few items. "Here," Andrea passes her a handful of toiletries. "Things I know I wouldn't want to go without."

Cal hesitates. Andrea's warmth is a complete one-eighty from days previous. "Thanks," Cal offers her a tentative smile before shoving them under her arm. She pushes her hand through a plastic bag, plucking out several wet wipes.

"Any tips?" Andrea asks, expression open and curious. Cal blinks at her as the woman settles down on one of the empty chairs, leaning forward with earnest.

"For what?"

"Surviving – out there."

Cal's expression quiets, going stoic and chilled. Her lips pale as they press against one another. She shrugs lightly, looking away from Andrea – open and curious, nothing like how she imagined their first _real_ conversation would be. Andrea had always come across as an angry, tumultuous woman.

"Are you thinking of leaving?" Cal probes.

Andrea shrugs, "I want to be prepared – just in case."

Cal nods, "it's always good to be prepared."

"But in all seriousness."

She considers the woman sitting before her, "don't be afraid."

Andrea looks away and scoffs lightly.

Cal shrugs and shoves her procured wet wipes into her back pocket. "I'm not kidding," she says.

"Sounds like something off a fortune cookie," Andrea says quite plainly.

Cal looks away from Andrea, her lips thin as she pushes away the memory of golden light, and of an officer ambling slowly towards the city. He had owned his death in that; he hadn't been afraid as he turned to meet his fate.

"Yeah, it kind of does," she breathes.

The two women stand and turn to leave the living room, pausing only long enough to excuse themselves to Lori as she heads up the stairs with a tray in hand. "Lunch for Beth," she explains with a smile, though her attention is directed to Cal and not the scowling Andrea at her side.

They exit the house and make their way towards camp. Andrea helps Cal carry a few items to her tent, whereupon arriving she stands in the door and examines the other woman's sparse belongings.

"Why the sock?" She asks outright, watching as Cal unceremoniously shoves a sock into an open Tylenol container.

"When the only thing between you and certain death is how quiet you can be, a few rattling pills can tip the scale," Cal explains, closing the capsules lid and tossing it down. The bottle hits the ground with hardly a pop, and then rolls quietly to Andrea's feet. "I learned that the hard way."

"What happened?"

Cal shrugs, "I was stupid, and someone else paid the price."

Andrea's face goes white, and she blinks in uncertainty. "I'm sorry."

Cal smiles ruefully. "Don't be. He was the one that told me that. _Don't be afraid._ I owe him everything."

Andrea doesn't say anything, but she looks out the door of the tent to the RV where Dale sits looking out across the fields.

* * *

The subtle joy of the day before is shattered. Cal's departure is met with a solemnity – everyone is quiet as she collapses her tent, with the exception of Dale who tells her to keep it.

"I'll have no use for it," she explains. "Not for how I travel."

He accepts it back with a wet eye and quiet nod.

The rest approach her individually, moving like ghosts from their breakfast or morning duties. Glenn offers her nothing more than a nod, a pinch of the lips and an awkward shuffle of his sneakers. Maggie presents her another shirt – long sleeved and duct taped. Lori and Carl murmur quiet goodbyes and good luck. Hershel thanks her for being there for his daughters when he could not.

Andrea approaches with a tentative smile, their brief discussion the previous day lending her courage. "I hope we meet again," she says. "Though hopefully through better circumstances."

Cal smiles,"hopefully."

T-Dog is there, wrapping her in his arms and hugging her tightly. She gasps loudly, not remembering the last time she had received a hug. After a moment she returns it, the feeling foreign and unusual. "If I see a storm, I know you'll be watching it, ya crazy."

She gives him a smug expression which he laughs at.

Carol walks up to her as T-Dog moves away, clutching her hand softly in her own. "Thank you," and that is all she says, though Cal can see the conflict in her eyes. She wants to say more; she wants to dissuade her from leaving.

But she doesn't.

The last person to approach is Daryl, though he moves over stiffly and with little preamble. He stands quietly in front of her, expression tight as she looks up at him. "Bye," he mutters quietly, and when it becomes apparent that he'll say no more, Cal turns to walk away.

"It might be shit," he says. "But it's better than being alone."

It's all he has to say to make her hurry away – the last plea for her to stay, and it coils around her more tightly than anything the others could have said.

* * *

Rick and Shane stand beside the green SUV, staring down at the map sprawled across it's nose. Cal, Hershel and Daryl stand beside them, their eyes trained on the small red 'X'.

"We need the guns," Rick says quite plainly, ignoring Shane's tense jaw.

"Better we get 'em than them assholes," Daryl grouses.

Rick nods. "I don't want to have them show up, and us not be prepared."

"I'll go," Daryl volunteers with a nod, but Rick shakes his head.

"Shane and I are going. I need you here."

"And I'm going to," Cal interjects. "I'll help you grab what you need, load up and then I'm gone."

Rick nods.

"We both shouldn't be going, man," Shane hisses, eyes dark and stormy.

"I need you on this," Rick replies. There is something about his tone that makes Cal pause – makes her narrow her eyes and wonder what Rick is up to. She knows his trust in Shane had been waning, but the clear suspicion in his eyes was enough to make her wonder just how much it had fallen away.

The two eye each other for a solid minute before Shane relents, bowing his head in concession.

"Sure, man."

As the group dissolves to prepare for their departure, Cal turns to toss her bag in the back of the SUV. She starts when she realizes Daryl is standing there, his eyes narrowed.

"Watch him," are the only two words he says before he slips away towards camp.

He doesn't need to clarify – she knows exactly who she needs to watch.

* * *

The drive is as somber as the day. Rick manoeuvres the SUV off the farm road and onto the highway, taking it a few miles south before they turn off on a service road. The rotted concrete makes the vehicle groan.

For a long time no one says a word. Rick looks ahead, while Cal sits in the back seat and watches Shane; the tension along his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw. He stares darkly out the window and she wonders if he's thinking of anything pleasant at all.

He has the same look on his face as Merle – something not quite right, something not quite there.

"There," Shane says, nodding to a walker ambling across a wide field. It's awkward gait is unrelenting – it stumps in a single direction, uncaring of the vehicle drifting by behind it.

"Wonder why it isn't stopping," she murmurs.

Shane scoffs, "probably got its nose on a good meal."

She shrugs and watches the walker until it disappears behind the crest of a hill.

They drive on for a while longer, until the flat farmlands give way to trees, and the service road spits them out on paved road littered with cracks. In the distance lingers a fenced off building; a series of school buses parked in the parking lot are the only ghosts in sight.

"I take it that's our police depot?" Shane asks.

Rick nods and steers towards the gate. The car comes to a stop, and for a long moment they sit in silence. Rick clutches the steering wheel tightly in one hand, while the other creeps down to clutch at the knife tucked into his belt. Shane's own hand grasps at his pistol, his eyes wide.

They slip from the car, moving onto the concrete with careful steps. Shane draws his pistol, but Rick shakes his head. "We need to be quiet," he warns. The other man blinks, his jaw tightening as if he wants to refuse – but then Cal is slipping past him, her own knife in hand.

They move up to the fence, looking out across the parking lot. The school buses are few, but large enough that they block a direct line of sight to the building squatting behind them.

Cal blinks and shields her eyes against the sun, marvelling at how contrasting heaven and hell had become. The dusty grime that covers every surface is apocalyptic while the blue sky overhead spoke of any other summer's day.

Rick suddenly rattles the fence.

Cal and Shane jump back, hissing and spitting in surprise. A short moment after, a moan resounds from behind one of the hulking school buses, and a few walkers come stumbling out from behind them.

"We need to be quiet. Conserve ammo – save it for the _real_ threats," Rick explains, digging the tip of his knife into the pad of his thumb and dragging the blossoming ribbon of blood across the chain link fence. Shane watches in quiet, brows drawn together in thought. "We can finish them off with a knife. Quick. Simple. Quiet -" he glances at Cal when he says this, his eyes taking in the hunting knife she clutches so reverently. "I saw what Cal could do, and we _need_ to do that."

Shane glances at her. She refuses to look at him.

The walkers throw themselves against the fence, rotted lips finding the thin trail of blood. They suck and tongue at the teasing meal, pale eyes wild with hunger.

Shane watches as Rick steps forward, his knife slipping into the eye of one. When he steps back, the walker falls down – dead as dead can be.

Shane takes the other one quickly, his eyes alighting with excitement.

They slip in through the gate, pushing it aside enough for the SUV to squeak past.

"They don't have bites," Shane suddenly calls out from where he squats beside the bodies, causing both Rick and Cal to freeze and turn towards him. Cal leaves the gate ajar, and instead moves towards him. Rick steps from the vehicle and jogs over.

"Maybe somewhere you didn't check?"

Shane gives her a bland look.

"You never know," she shrugs.

"Scratches?" Rick suggests hurriedly, pointing at a long line along one of the men's forearms.

Shane shrugs it off, accepting the explanation. As he moves off towards one of the buses, Cal hangs back, eyeing Rick hard.

They drift through the parking lot, eyes wide and at the ready. Their hands ache with how tightly they clutch at their knives, fingers going cold from their white knuckle grip.

Cal breaks off from the other two, drifting into a school bus. She hesitates at the front, her fingers coiling around the lever to close the door. It whispers shut behind her, and she reaches up to tap the tip of her knife against the ceiling. The _tap-tap-tapping_ is enough to make her wince and hold her breath.

There isn't a sound in reply.

She ignores the soft echo of Shane and Rick's voices as she moves down the row of seats. She finds nothing in the first bus, and so she exits and climbs into another bus. The soft echo of their voices has turned more heated by the time she exits the second bus, Lori and Carl the only words she can decipher.

She remembers Shane's and Lori's hushed argument, their words tangling together into some semblance of an affair. Cal hadn't known either of them well, but in that brief moment when she had overheard them after Randall's execution, it had become apparent that Shane considered Rick incompetent when it came to protecting his family.

In the third bus she finds several backpacks; she digs into them eagerly. When her search yields nothing more than a few changes of clothes and a book, she sighs. The people the packs belonged to hadn't been planning for an end of the world scenario.

"Shit," she says, leaning back.

And it is only then that she realizes she can no longer hear Rick and Shane.

Silence encompasses the parking lot.

Cal hesitates, her breath catching as she waits for something – anything.

The sharp sound of shattering glass is one of the few things she hears; and the sudden crackling moans of walkers.


	16. Chapter 16

His regret is what keeps him going – a defiance born of his own idiocy. They had warned him that the pleasures of their world were not past the high walls, but he had been so far from caring. As long as he was away – far, far away.

Of course, he had never anticipated that it would be like _this._ He had never thought that the world was so far gone. It surprised him, amazed him, that the Governor and his people had so carefully shucked them of their ability to survive. He had taken from them the very thing they needed most in this new world.

This new, terrible world.

And Brandon was now learning why he should have stayed in the castle walls. The bite on his arm pulsed. Though it ached unbearably, it was not what drove him on into the night.

It was the horde of walkers pulsing behind him – a vast and endless ocean of undead.

* * *

It is by some bizarre luck that she has a clear shot to the SUV. It is by some twist of fate that she manages to scramble from the school bus, gallop across the parking lot and dive into the car unseen. She sinks low in the driver's seat, eyes wild as she stares out across the concrete towards the building, to the wave of walkers spilling out from the dark mouth of a shattered window. They pour across the lot in a mad search for something – or someone.

She watches in horror as Shane scrambles across the lot, haggard and limping as he throws himself into the very same school bus she had been in only moments before. The rushing herd of walkers that lope behind him cackle and moan, hands clawing desperately at the door of the bus.

It's only then that she realizes he can't keep it closed.

"Shit," Cal hisses, her fingers tight around her knife. She peers over the dashboard, watching as Shane's strength begins to wane with every passing moment. The horde is relentless, throwing both their hands and themselves against the small door.

She looks away from the bus, eyes wild as she searches for Rick. What would it mean for the group, she wonders, if Rick was lost to a sea of walkers and Shane was swallowed whole? She can't even blink as she scans the parking lot – and then she hears it, the sharp crack of gunfire.

One.

Two.

Three.

And then he's there, creeping out from behind a cop cruiser tucked near the window, his eyes wide as he takes in the horde pressing in on the bus, and the desperate screams of Shane – angry and scared.

Cal hisses, reaching down to the ignition – blanching when she realizes the keys are gone and Rick most likely has them. She goes still as he begins running to the car.

"Come on!" She hisses, nearly shrieking in despair when a few walkers break off from the bus and begin loping behind Rick. She opens the door hurriedly, pointing at the passenger seat to save time. "Other side!" She yells, and Rick rears around the nose of the SUV and dives for the door. It slams shut behind him and he fishes out the keys from his pocket.

"Shit," he repeats over and over, voicing her own sentiment.

Cal jams the keys into the ignition, the SUV purring to life. The walkers in pursuit continue forward, and at the sight of the running lights blinking on, a few others break away from the bus.

"We're going around," she hisses, driving away from the bus around to the back of the building. Just as they turn the corner they see Shane in the window, looking out after them with wide, fearful eyes.

"He thinks we're leaving him," Rick says so plainly that Cal feels a lump form in her throat.

Cal glances at him – and then does a double take. "What the _fuck_ happened to your face?" She snarls, eyeing the bruises and battered skin of his cheeks and jaw.

Rick blanches, surprised by her sudden vehemence. He doesn't have time to respond, as she's suddenly pushing at him to open the window.

"Nevermind, just shoot," she hisses, twisting the car around the final corner of the building. Just as they come around the corner the front door of the bus caves in, walkers spilling into the bus' belly. A flash of shadow is the only sign of Shane's desperate dash to freedom.

The sharp crack, crack, crack of Rick's gun echoes wildly around them.

Cal feels her heart explode in her chest.

_Don't be afraid._

A breath. A single breath.

Shane is leaping in through an open window – they don't even stop.

The walkers round the bus' side, engulfing the rear of the SUV. She can feel the pull of them, as they drag their hands across the exterior, as they throw their bodies down and under the tires. One or two of them stumble in front of the SUV, but she swerves around them or clips their legs. They sprawl behind her, struggling to stand – until the rearing herd gallops atop them, crushing them beneath their heels.

The SUV tilts and sways as it twists out of the parking lot, squealing lightly as she rams down on the gas and accelerates away. She glances back once or twice, her heart plummeting at the rearing wave of walkers that amble and lope unsteadily behind.

They are quiet. Only the unsteady rasps of the two men in the car break the silence. Cal finds her own breath coming in ragged pants, her adrenaline pulsing like fire through her veins. She can feel the sweat trickling down her back, stinging her wounded side. She can feel the telltale wet of blood on her skin - she must have opened her cut during her mad dash to the car.

"Shit," she finally says, voicing concern over her wound. "Shit," she repeats, finally realizing just how closely they had come to being a meal. The last time she had come so close to being walker-food was in the town, after her unfortunate run in with Merle. "Shit. Fuck. Shit."

Rick winces at her words.

Shane just scoffs, "you can say that again."

"What was that?" Cal hisses, glancing at Rick and then in the rear view mirror at Shane.

Shane shrugs, and Rick looks out the window, his thumb tracing his jaw. "Just ran into some trouble," Rick supplies, and Cal shakes her head in frustration.

She doesn't know what to say, she doesn't even know if there really is anything _to_ say. Rick had been so adamant with Shane about being quiet, and then the next moment the quiet afternoon had lit up with gunshots and shattering glass.

"I thought you guys left me behind for sure," Shane admits, the defeat in his voice enough to reel Cal back from her anger.

And despite her wariness of Shane, she understands. She understands what it's like to be beaten and bloodied, and abandoned. She can still distinctly remember the world tilting, and how difficult it had been to simply sit up. She can still recall how she had been content to lay there and die – until she heard them moaning and crackling as they spilled out of their broken homes.

"Sorry," Cal murmurs, keeping her eyes firmly ahead so as not to show Shane her own fear, her own distress at having once experienced something so familiar.

He had felt it for a moment back in the bus, but in truth that was all someone truly needed to feel. A moment of abandonment was still too much.

"I'm just glad you came back," he says.

"Still, I'm sorry," she repeats.

It doesn't escape her notice that Rick says nothing at all.

* * *

T-Dog stares up at the new platform on the windmill – their new watch tower.

"Come winter, that RV is going to have to be in the barn," Dale had said, and so it had become T-Dog and Glenn's job to lay down a few boards and make sure they were stable. The platform itself wasn't anything special, but it sat higher than the top of the RV, and if worked the correct way, would provide better shelter from the elements than the motorhome ever could.

"I like it," Glenn proclaims, grinning from ear to ear. He crawls up the side of the tower, still grinning like a fool as he slings himself down on the platform. "It's like paradise."

T-Dog scoffs from below. "You have a hard-on for a bunch of wood, huh?"

Glenn waves his hand in the air dramatically, "leave me to my joy."

T-Dog chuckles and crawls up beside him. "No more cooking on that metal roof."

"No more awkward listening in on awkward conversations in the RV."

"Or around camp."

"Or around camp," Glenn agrees.

"It's like the tree house I never had," T-Dog laughs.

Glenn blinks at him, "man, you never had a tree house?"

T-Dog shrugs, "nah, man."

"Huh," Glenn pauses. "Come to think of it, I don't think I did either."

"Time and place for everythin'."

"Who would have thought that time and place would be the apocalypse?"

They sit in quiet for a bit longer, marvelling over the view the new watch tower lends. It isn't long before Dale moves towards them, staring up with appreciation at the platform they've thrown together in just the morning.

"Looks good," he comments, climbing up the tower's side to closer inspect the workmanship.

T-Dog grins and flips the hammer lazily in his hand.

And then Dale comments idly on the redundancy of some of T-Dog's nails, and the two begin to bicker uselessly.

"I did not hear you just say that," T-Dog exclaims, rolling onto his belly to examine a particular board that Dale is pointing at.

"Look at this," Dale chides under his breath. "It looks like a five year old -"

And off they go.

Glenn sighs into his hands and sits up, looking out across the field. In the distance he can make out Hershel ambling slowly about the chicken coop with Patricia; Lori and Carl are sitting forehead to forehead under a group of trees working on homework; Carol sits in the shade, elbow deep in sudsy water and wet clothes; Daryl stalks off into the trees with his crossbow; and finally Maggie working her horse in a sandy ring.

He wets his lips and watches her, remembering their brief escapade in the pharmacy in town-

"Are they back already?" Dale's voice shocks him from his revery, and he starts into awareness.

Sure enough, the green SUV that Shane, Rick and Cal had taken out that morning is flying down the drive, a cloud of dust kicking up behind it.

"They shouldn't be," T-Dog says, and the three of them hesitate with wide eyes before they shoot down the side of the tower and dart across the grassy field to camp. They hardly make it to the drive by the time the SUV comes skidding to a halt. Everyone rushes out, wide eyed and panicked.

Rick and Shane step out of the car, and finally, Cal.

"What happened?" Lori asks, eyes wide.

"Walkers," Rick says, holding up his hand to stop everyone's questions and desperate looks. "We were overwhelmed."

Cal scowls beside them, her jaw tense.

Shane is quiet.

"A walker did that?" Lori asks, her eyes on both Shane and Rick's respective bruises. Both men rub at their necks, and Shane looks away.

"Yeah," Rick confirms. "Place was overrun – we were lucky we got out."

One by one more people turn to greet them, wincing as they hear the news of the overrun police depot. Slowly the group dissolves, moving back to the camp or the house. Cal follows behind, watching the obvious tension between Shane and Rick.

"You're back," Dale breathes from beside her. Cal startles.

"For a while anyways," she says, tugging at her scarf. She slings the pack off her back and settles into a chair, immediately fishing out a bottle of water from her bag and gulping down the contents. Her legs still feel shaky from their prompt departure; her heart still thrums dramatically in her chest.

Dale nods and casts a glance over his shoulder, watching as Lori and Hershel usher Shane and Rick back to the house.

"What happened?" He asks suddenly, causing Cal to glower into her bottle.

"I don't know," she says. The look Dale gives her makes her sigh in exasperation. "One moment I was rifling through a bus, and the next I hear them arguing-"

"Arguing?"

"-about Lori and Carl."

Dale inhales sharply, his eyes narrowing.

"What is it?"

"Lori's pregnant," Dale explains.

Cal's breath catches in her throat, though she isn't sure if that's due to the idea of Lori being pregnant, or the idea of a baby making its way into the world. What had she said to Dale only days before? That the world wasn't black or white or grey, but the rusted brown of dried blood. What sort of world would that be for an infant?

"Shane doesn't think Rick can protect them."

Dale nods, watching as Shane paces anxiously on the porch of the house.

"He's dangerous," he says. "And he needs to be dealt with."

* * *

Daryl is angry. Or he was. He couldn't help but think that their soft discussions would have meant something, that she would have stayed. At first he had supposed it wouldn't matter, that she would drift through and he wouldn't care, but when she had finally left with Shane and Rick he had watched after the retreating dust cloud and realized it did matter.

He did care.

It had taken only a few short moments for him to stalk off, grumbling and rabid. Carol had retreated quickly upon seeing his expression, and Lori had ducked away with Carl. Only Dale had met his eye; only Dale had spoken a word to him from up on his RV.

"Thunder storm is rolling in," he'd said, and Daryl had glared up at the blue sky – not a cloud in sight.

"Whatever, old man," he'd groused, rumbling away with a sharp bark as Glenn poked his head out from his tent.

"What's up with him?" Glenn had asked.

"He's just missing a puzzle piece," Dale had supplied.

Their idle chatter had made him angrier. What did they know?

He'd spent the entire morning and half of the afternoon in the woods, tracking paths both familiar and foreign. At one point he found himself back at the place he had first drawn on Cal, the dead leaves and underbrush already dusting over their foot prints.

He settled there against a tree, pulling out the bolt she had found and given him. Despite his initial misgivings the arrow fit perfectly and flew true; something he wouldn't have thought out of something scrounged from the dirt of the dead world.

For a long while he had sat there, thinking of Merle and the uncertainty of his survival, and of Cal and the certainty of her's. A part of him mused what the two of them would have thought of one another, though it was a brief idea that quickly fell away – they were too different, too opposite. They juxtaposed one another so completely that could already taste the fallout.

Merle would have tried to eat Cal up, there was no doubt about that.

Where she was silence, he was the cacophony of abuse. Where she was the stillness before a storm, Merle was the roaring thunder in the night.

Eventually Daryl returns to the farm, a string of dead squirrels hanging from his shoulder. He moves through the grassy field, mindful of each step. The green SUV is tucked up beside the house – the dark hand prints that are scattered across the back make him hesitate.

It's then he sees Shane storming from the house to his tent. In the distance Rick walks with Lori and Carl.

"Dinner?" Dale speaks plainly as Daryl moves up to the fire.

"Yeah," Daryl admits, holding out the string of rodents with a nod. Dale and Carol move forward eagerly.

"They'll make a good stew," Dale says, his tone cheerful despite Daryl's sour expression.

Daryl says nothing.

"Can you get a pot from the RV?" Dale asks, eyes light with mischief. "I'm sure Carol and I can work up something really nice."

"Yeah whatever," he grouses, moving into the RV.

It's then that he sees her.

She's crouched in the middle of the floor, tugging at the straps of her sleeping bag with one hand. When the door swings against the side of the RV, she lets out a soft sigh and glances up in exasperation – and then she meets his eye and they both hesitate.

For a long moment they are still, their breath tight in their chest.

"You're back," he says quite plainly.

"We ran into some trouble," she breathes. "Walkers."

He blinks. He searches for something to say – anything.

"You hurt?"

She shakes her head.

And he feels the anger begin to melt away.

* * *

Sleep doesn't come to her, and it is long in the night that she lays awake, staring blankly at the faux-wood walls of the RV. Around her she can hear the RV settle; Carol's soft breaths from the back, and Dale's loud snores from the couch. He had insisted on taking the floor, but Cal had excused herself early, settling quickly in the tight aisle between the kitchen and bathroom before he'd had a chance.

"Well that isn't fair at all," he had said, but Cal had simply smiled in defiance.

She blinks, rubbing at her eyes and willing a yawn from her mouth. She wants to sleep, to rest easy, but she knows the moment she closes her eyes she'll be plagued with senseless dreamscapes and nightmares. The anticipation alone makes her toss and turn until finally she rolls from her sleeping bag and crawls from the belly of the RV.

Outside the night is quiet. The pregnant moon casts an eery light, one that is punctuated by the backdrop of the cloudless sky stretching on into immutable darkness. For a long moment she stands in the silence of camp, looking at the silhouettes of tents squatting in the night, and the house watching on from afar.

She holds in a breath, listening.

"Cal?"

She glances up, startled. Daryl looks down at her from atop the RV, brow drawn furtively over his eyes; it is a dark expression embellished by the deep shadows of the night.

"Hey," she murmurs, tugging at her long sleeved shirt self consciously.

Daryl gives her a funny look.

"I uh, couldn't sleep," she says.

"Hm," he looks away.

She isn't cowed by his apparent coldness and instead crawls up beside him, settling into an abandoned lawn chair off to the side. At length, they sit on into a silence as the night stretches before them, dark and deep and endless. Neither looks at one another, but instead sweep their eyes in different directions, taking in the night that rolls on and on.

It isn't long until he speaks, and she isn't surprised by his question.

"When do you leave?"

A part of her winces at his wording, but another part – a part, she thinks, similar to him – recognizes it as only a truth. There isn't hope in his voice, but a grim understanding. She has no doubt that he doesn't want her to leave, but she knows he won't ask her to stay.

He doesn't want to care.

"I don't know," she says, regretting the words as soon as they pass her lips.

Daryl's turns away, looking back to the hills rolling on into darkness.

She inwardly curses herself; despite his pretence of apathy, Daryl did care.

He cared about the group – he had always cared about the group -, and for some reason he cared about her too. She would never suppose to ask him why or how, but she had seen the concern in his eyes when she left with Rick and Shane. His warning about Shane had been simple enough, but the look he had given her spoke of a friendship – though a tentative one, she knew. From Daryl, that was all she could really ask for.

She sets back into the lawn chair and wraps her arms around herself.

"I thought we were going to leave Shane behind," Cal speaks up. "He was stuck in a bus."

Daryl glances at her, his eyes dark.

"He try to take Rick?"

She blinks; she knows he's observant enough to have recognized Shane and Rick's bruises for what they were. Only a blind fool wouldn't have been able to discern the truth; the scrapes, the hard words, and looks. Even after they'd returned, Shane had retreated from Rick, but his eyes had held his turmoil well.

"Yeah," Cal nods. "He did."

Daryl's lips are tight as he looks away. "Shoulda left him behind."

She hesitates, and then bites at her lip."We all make mistakes," she murmurs quietly.

He glances at her, unsure if her admission encompasses only Shane, but he finds her frozen, looking out across the vast field of darkness before them.

"Cal?" He asks, but her gaze is unwavering. He follows her eyes, his own cresting the dark silhouettes of the treeline. Despite the moon spilling her light across the horizon, even he can't deny the telltale flash of headlights up on the next farm over. He stills, fingers coiling around his crossbow.

"We need to get Rick," Cal whispers and then disappears, melting into the dark.

Daryl blinks, squinting. The farm was far enough away through both the trees and hills that they had never had cause for concern, but in the dark the bright light travelled far. From where they sat atop the RV, he could hardly make out the bright flare of their headlights flickering between trees. Only a wisp of light would spear through – a blinding glimpse accentuated by the dark surrounding them.

But it was enough.

* * *

The sound of a frog croaking into the paleness of predawn light is enough to shatter glass.

Rick looks out across the field from the front seat of the RV, brow drawn and jaw tight. The dark shadows around his eyes tell of his sleepless night.

"Are they even still there?" T-Dog asks. "How we know they ain't gone yet?"

"We don't," Daryl grouses. "We saw 'em – that's enough."

Rick runs a hand across his jaw.

"They might have moved on," Glenn suggests from somewhere in the belly of the RV. "Right?"

"We can't expect them to have," Dale says from the passenger seat.

"What if they're Randall's people?" "T-Dog asks.

"We'll deal with it," Daryl meets his gaze evenly. "Just like before."

"Yeah, _deal with it,_ " Glenn groans.

They go quiet as they look out across the field, unable to see the farm next to them, but knowing that only hours before there had been other people there.

Cal, leaning back into the couch, watches them. They've changed – each and every one of them so different from even a week before. There is a hardness to their eyes, a stiffness as they look out across the field.

"We'll move into the house for a few days," Rick suddenly says. "Station a few extra people on watch. Limit outdoor activity just in case they're watching."

"Should we send a scout-?"

"You volunteering?" T-Dog cuts Glenn off, causing the younger man to blush.

"No," Rick shakes his head. "If they're still there, we'll know soon enough."

"And if they are?"

Everyone freezes and looks at Shane leaning against a counter, cleaning his nails with the tip of his knife. His expression is expectant – almost condescending.

"And if they are?" He repeats, meeting Rick's eye so evenly that the RV sparks with a sudden electricity.

"We'll deal with it," Rick's jaw works. He meets and holds Shane's gaze.

Neither looks away.

* * *

The sun hardly breaches the horizon by the time they are finished; by the time the camp is collapsed and packed away once more into the belly of the RV. They move into the house, pushing themselves into rooms with their few belongings.

Hershel accepts them readily, his eyes drifting forlornly to the farm neighbouring his own property.

"It'll be better this way," he says. "Especially with winter fast approaching."

The group divides, slinking to rooms or curling up on the floor. Cal finds herself depositing her bag in a room with Carol and Andrea, and then retreating back to the living room.

Rick greets her with a grimace.

"You should get some sleep," he tells her, eyeing the hard lines under her eyes. She hadn't slept all night, that much was obvious.

"I need to do something," Cal tells him quietly. "Anything."

Rick hesitates – and then nods.

"They need help with breakfast."

"Traditional gender roles, huh?" Andrea murmurs as she passes by from their room – her voice is filled with frustration.

Rick rubs at the bridge of his nose.

"Don't worry, Rick," Cal pats him on the shoulder as she passes by.

Despite the amount of people in the house, the seriousness of their current predicament sees them silent. The morning is spent in hushed stillness, watching and waiting.

Daryl, Rick and Dale are the first on watch; laying themselves down upon the roof of the RV, and the new watch tower, and the loft of the barn. From the house they can hardly see them where they lay for hours on end, hardly breathing they are so still.

It is just after lunch when Shane, T-Dog and Glenn move out to relieve the others.

"Tell me if you see anything," Rick stresses as he hands Glenn a pair of binoculars lifted from Dale's bird watching kit. " _Anything."_

Glenn nods as he settles himself atop the RV, nodding to T-Dog at the watch tower, and Shane in the barn.

* * *

His glock is heavy – heavier than it ought to be. He doesn't understand it.

Maybe it's guilt, he thinks. Maybe it's the fact he keeps seeing flashes of things that could be, should be, and would never be. He keeps seeing himself – happy and laughing, but it isn't real. It isn't real because there is blood on his hands – but not red blood, he notices, but brown, dried and crusted.

It flakes away into a storm.

A storm building inside and around him.

Sometimes he remembers a flash of a life before, when his jealousy was something subtle and born of wanting. He had been found wanting – always. The only thing he excelled in was being hard and cold and mean.

The only thing he had excelled in then was the only thing keeping him alive now.

And it wasn't enough.

It _still_ wasn't enough.

Shane had wanted to be a hero. Growing up, that was all anyone really wanted to be. And for a while he had been a hero. He'd saved cats from trees, and occasionally helped a little old woman across a road. Hell, he'd even been in a shootout or two – including the one that had led to Rick's hospitalization.

But then the new world hit and he realized that he just wasn't cut out to be a hero. Hell, sometimes he felt like he wasn't even cut out to be a cop.

He would never be good enough, he would never be _right._ Not while Rick was still there – not while Rick was still holding on to what he believed in. Rick had excelled at a lot of things – and it wasn't always being a husband or father -, but it was in being a good man.

Rick was a good man.

Rick was a better man than him.

He blinks, his hand coming up again and again to hit against his forehead.

Again and again and again.

He takes a breath.

It would have been easy to leave him behind, but Rick hadn't done that.

He would have – he would have left Rick behind if his butt had hit leather first. But Rick had come back for him. He had come back despite everything. Shane blinks, remembering a time when he could rely on Rick for anything – and Rick had relied on him too. It's a bittersweet thought, one that grounds him.

One that makes him realize just how fucking heavy the gun really is.

He doesn't understand why the gun is heavy. It's heavy enough that he strains into the afternoon heat, sweating under its weight. He cradles it until he can't, and then a resolve sets in.

And then he unloads the magazine, letting the shells rain across the floor.

The gun returns to his hand – light. Lighter than before all this; lighter than before _everything._ It feels right, like it should have always been empty.

And maybe that was what finally made Shane a hero.

* * *

"They're there. I saw 'em. They're right fucking there, Rick."

Everyone around the living room starts, eyes wide as Shane bursts in with Glenn on his heels.

Rick stands up, hand falling to his hip as he takes in Shane's stormy expression and Glenn's wild eyes. "Did you see anything?" He asks the younger man.

"No," Glenn chirps, holding up his hands.

Rick looks to Shane, "you sure?"

Shane holds his gaze before he nods.

"How many?"

"A couple."

The room goes quiet.

Patricia and Beth – only having just found her legs – murmur quietly in their discontent. Andrea hardens. Carol looks away sharply. Lori clutches at Carl.

The rest stand in silence, waiting.

Rick rubs at his eyes.

"They might be with Randall," Cal says, her words eliciting a ripple of disquiet. "We need to know if we have to do something."

Rick looks at the group, their fearful faces as they clutch at one another. "I won't ask anyone to do this."

"I'll go," Cal says. "I saw a few of their faces. I can help you."

Rick nods.

"Me too," Daryl offers, the brief glance he gives Cal enough of a reason for Rick to nod his head in acceptance.

"Thank you-"

"I'm coming," Shane suddenly cuts Rick off.

A long moment passes. Everyone holds their breath.

"Okay," Rick says. "Okay."

* * *

They move out shortly thereafter, the gold light of the young evening falling around them. They head through the trees, around behind the barn. Daryl, having known the farmhouse in his search for Sophia, leads them through the wood. It isn't long until they come to the creek the property backs onto, and Shane murmurs quietly of their need to split up.

"I saw them moving up this treeline," Shane supplies, motioning ahead.

Daryl nods.

"You two go up that way. We'll aim for the house," Rick says.

Cal blinks in surprise, and when she looks at Rick it's to find his expression serious and imploring – there is an acceptance about him. She hesitates.

"It'll be okay," Rick nods.

"Be careful," she turns, briefly glancing again at Shane. The tension of the man has melted away, his shoulders loose as he stares long at Rick.

They don't wait to watch Rick and Shane bleed away into the wood, but turn and move along the fence line bordering Hershel's property. Daryl moves quickly, his eyes trained to the ground searching for any hint of the trail.

Cal follows behind him, her eyes wide as she clutches at her knife.

For a long while neither say a word. The only sound between them is the soft step of Daryl's feet over the dried grasses and fallen leaves – behind him, Cal is a ghost. He glances back several times to ensure she's there, to make sure she hasn't floated away into the slowly darkening wood.

"There ain't nothing here," Daryl rasps, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder as he rights himself. They'd been out long enough that the light was failing, casting an array of shadows in places they ought not to be.

"What do you mean?" Cal asks, her voice pinched.

"I mean, either we missed the trail, or there ain't one to begin with."

"But-"

It is then that they see the farmhouse squatting alone up a narrow and winding drive, tucked gently back in copse of trees and bushes. A car sits off to the side, door thrown open.

Daryl slinks past her, moving through the clearing with quick steps. He's beside the vehicle in moments, peering in with a frown.

"Whoever was in here left in a hurry," he says. "Left a lot of shit in here."

Cal joins him and peers in, blanching at piles of goods. The smell of fresh blood is grizzly, and Cal glances down in alarm when she notices the front seat is covered in it.

"What're you thinking?" She asks.

Daryl shrugs, moving around the car to get a better look at it. "Georgia plates."

Cal nods and leans over, turning the keys in the ignition. "Car's dead."

He nods, "probably ran into some trouble, drove out here and-"

Cal frowns at the blood on the front seat.

Their eyes move to the house standing in silence. Slowly they move to it, wincing as the steps creak underfoot and the door wheezes. For a long moment they stand in the doorway, blinking into the dark house that looms around them. Cal marvels at how her life had taken such a turn, remembering her brief adventure with Merle into Betty and Graham's home.

It doesn't take them long to find him, a fresh walker still shut away in an upstairs bedroom. He sits up from the bed he had died in, eyes pale and ravenous. Daryl puts him down, and the two shuffle closer to take a look at him.

"Something just doesn't add up," Daryl mutters, and he doesn't need to say anything for Cal to know he refers to Shane's apparent sighting. There was no one else here – the car had been too full, and someone else would have surely put the walker down before moving on.

Something was happening.

Daryl digs in the man's pockets, wincing when he pulls out a crumpled photograph of the man and a pretty woman in front of a house. Daryl shoves it in Cal's hand. She pales when she catches sight of the man's grinning face, her heart squeezing painfully at the sight of him so alive and free; it juxtaposes the reality of the body in front of her.

She flips it over, wincing at the buoyant scrawl.

_Brandon and Jessica._

_Woodbury._

"Woodbury," Cal glances up. "Isn't that on the far side of Senoia?"

"Yeah," Daryl rasps. "It is."

And then they hear a gunshot.


	17. Chapter 17

_A perfect halo_  
_Of gold hair and lightning_  
_Sets you off against  
_ _The planet's last dance_

* * *

Brandon hadn't amounted to much in life, and his death had been rather unextraordinary. He had, by some foolish draw of luck, been bitten when helping secure a rather volatile – and injured – survivor from near Senoia. It had been in the confusion of the attack that he had slipped away knowing his fate was sealed – he had been too cowardly to end it himself.

He had fled, taking an abandoned car on the highway and driving into the night. It was then that he had stumbled on the herd, disbelieving of the vast ocean of shadows that shifted and waved before him. It was only as his headlights swam across their eyes that he had realized just what he was looking at – and he had turned to flee once more.

They had followed the flare of lights, one thought and one thought alone driving them on and on - hunger. By the time the sun had come and gone again, the herd numbered somewhere in the hundreds. Inevitably, Brandon had succumbed to his injuries, and still the herd stared ahead, unaware that they followed a man long dead.

They would have wandered still had it not been by some twist of fate that a man was killed. They would have gone on forever, had a boy not drawn and shot a pistol to protect his father.

But the sky lit up with a crack, and their eyes and mouths and minds turned with it.

* * *

The gun shot echoes like a thousand voices.

_We're right here. Come and get us._

A deep silence follows thereafter, and neither Cal nor Daryl can find their voices or their feet. They are frozen.

Daryl's sentiment echoes in the room – something wasn't right, and it began with Shane and Rick. Cal could still remember the freshness of their bruises, the turmoil in their eyes. Their argument had taken a violent turn, but was it so deeply rooted that it would end so violently?

The lingering silence of the gunshot's shock gives her her answer.

Daryl doesn't say anything. He turns and runs, and Cal follows him closely. They weave through the house, clutching their weapons in hand. When they come to the front door Daryl comes to a grinding halt – Cal runs into his back with a soft breathe.

"Fuck," Daryl hisses, and Cal follows his gaze out the window. From the treeline there pours a wave of stumbling, ambling, groaning shadows – each and every one jerking and clicking and snapping as they drift through the dark. With surmounting horror and dread, both Cal and Daryl realize they head for the farm – towards the blazing beacon of the Greene's home.

There is no time for discussion, if they wait any longer the walkers would be upon them. "That many will tear the house apart," Cal whispers.

Cal pulls at Daryl, her insistent grip tugging him into the gut of the house, towards the kitchen. It's there that they find a back door leading off into the dark wood. For a moment they hesitate, Cal's fingers coiled about the door handle in a white-knuckled grip.

The question is evident in her eyes – a challenge.

Daryl nods, and Cal pushes the door open.

It's a short run from the house to the treeline, and they move silently across the grasses and into the underbrush. They don't look back, but slip along shadowy game trails. The moon, despite her fullness, is no ally in the wood, and it is only when Cal stumbles over a root that Daryl has the opportunity to look back.

In the field behind them is a dark and rippling wave – an ocean pouring out from the far treeline, and crashing like the growing tide against and around the farm house they had only just been in. It was unalike anything he had ever seen. The herd on the highway was nothing in comparison.

Daryl's fingers coil tightly about Cal's bicep, and he pulls her to her feet with a soft grunt. She doesn't protest; she doesn't turn and look back. They push into the trees, running as quickly as they can through the dark forest with its uneven footing. Once or twice Cal stumbles, though her lips remain firmly closed and she suffers in silence.

They leap over the fence, wincing as they burst out from the safety of the treeline to rush across the open field. Cal matches Daryl in speed, though less familiar with running over uneven footing, she lags behind after a few missteps.

Behind them they hear a crack – a loud splintering sound that forces them to keep going.

"The fence," Daryl explains, and Cal feels her blood run cold when another crack echoes into the night.

She can already imagine them spilling across the field.

"What's going on?" They hear a cry come from the house, and both of them rush until they're spilling into the light of the porch.

"What's going on?" Someone repeats.

"We heard a gunshot," Andrea says.

"Where are Rick and Shane?"

"Did you see Carl?" Lori cries.

"We have to go," Cal breathes.

"Did you see Carl?!" Lori hisses.

"We have to go!" Cal snaps, silencing the murmurs of confusion. "They're coming - walkers."

Slowly, one by one, they turn to look out across the field to the horde drifting towards them. It isn't hard to discern the shadowy mass for what it is – the rattling moans and cracked growls are enough. They spill out from the woods in every direction, moving as one endless horde towards their home.

"I haven't seen this many since Atlanta," Glenn says.

"We have to go," Cal whispers.

It is as those words leave her mouth that the barn erupts in flames, belching fire from its belly and crackling with the cries of the undead trapped within. The barn echos with the shots of a pistol – the telltale flash of gunfire drawing the group's cries of dismay. Jimmy is the first to react, spilling from the porch and rushing for the RV, screaming that someone is on top of the barn.

The distinct roar of a Magnum cracking in the night forces a cry from Lori. "Rick! Carl!"

The RV sputters as Jimmy tries to start it, the telltale crack and cough of the motor causing several earsplitting cackles to rise up from the oncoming horde. The old vehicle comes to life just in time, its headlights spilling across the snarling faces and outstretched hands of the first walkers. Even from the house, over the tumult of the herd's cries, Jimmy's yell of distress and fear ring clear.

Jimmy throws the RV into drive, running over several of the walkers with a slurping crunch.

Someone on the porch lets out a cry as several of the undead ignore the fleeing RV, their mouths clicking as they consider the people standing on the porch. Chaos erupts – people fly in every direction, rushing into the house for belongings, or towards the vehicles parked in the drive.

"Carl!" Lori shouts, her panic evident in her eyes as the barn roars in its fiery death. She watches in panic as the RV bounces across the field, lurching across the uneven terrain – whether walker or dirt - as Jimmy races for the barn and the two figures waving frantically for help.

"He'll be fine, Lori!" Cal hisses, grabbing Lori's hand and dragging her towards a truck. The other woman rips her hand from Cal's iron grip and attempts to run, but T-Dog is there curling her into his arms.

"Go!" He snaps, dragging a kicking Lori towards a truck. "I got her!"

The first crack of a shotgun makes everyone hesitate. The walkers are upon them, spilling across what had once been camp, and reaching greedily for the farmhouse. Hershel stands a few yards from the house, cracking shot after shot from his shotgun, stopping just long enough to reload.

Cries of terror alight the night. Cal ignores them, rushing from the porch – hesitating when she nearly runs into a wave of walkers coming around behind the farmhouse. Someone shrieks off to her left, and Cal turns with wide eyes to watch as Patricia, having only just stepped from the backdoor of the house, is swallowed beneath a horde of reaching hands. Beth shrieks from her side, her hand reaching out as if to save the older woman. When Patricia's grip goes limp Beth turns to flee, but a hand coils in her hair and drags her down.

Cal blinks, her mouth going dry as she watches both women disappearing under a pile of squirming bodies.

One moment they had been there – alive and breathing – and the next they had not.

"Cal!"

Something collapses on her from behind, and she pitches forward under a body. Somehow in the fall she twists, her eyes widening as a pair of teeth snap down on her arm. The layers of duct tape wrapped around her forearm stop the walker from piercing her skin, but the blinding pressure of its unrelenting jaws bearing down on her nearly makes her yell in pain. The walker's hands reach for her stomach; its jaw squeezing and ripping at her arm.

She tries to kick it. She tries to thrash and push it away. She can feel its fingers scrabbling across her torso, pulling at her shirt, trying to dig into the soft skin of her belly. She was in the city long enough to know that their teeth weren't their only weapons – she had seen what they could do in those first few days. The cold truth of her impending death rears before her, and Cal lets out a quiet snarl.

_Forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell._

Somehow, she manages to wrestle her knife free from beneath the weight of her attacker. She stabs awkwardly at the walker's head, rage building in a soft snarl as she misses again and again. Her snarl turns to a muted yell of pain when it begins to shake its head, shaking her arm in its mouth as if to break her limb. The pain is blinding, and by some luck she manages to thrust her knife into its temple.

It slumps forward against her, mouth still pressed against her aching arm. For a long moment she lays beneath its, listening as the world dissolves into terror and hunger.

She knows she doesn't have long. She pushes the walker from her and stands, eyes wide and wild. The initial group of walkers that had spilled from behind the house are preoccupied only a few feet away, ripping and tearing into what had once been Beth and Patricia.

Cal takes a step back when a bloodied walker looks up at her, its white eyes wide in recognition. It lets out a rattling moan and stands, shaking and jerking as it steps towards her.

_Fight like hell._

A hand grabs at her. Cal turns with her knife, a snarl on her lips.

"Fuck girl, it's me," Daryl hisses, putting a bolt into the walker shambling towards them. He grabs her by the arm and drags her after him, ignoring her hiss of pain. Cal follows, eyes wide as she takes in the field before them – shadowed black by the amount of walkers still spilling out from the woods. "Come on!" Daryl grouses.

"The others?" Cal dares to ask, quiet despite the chaos surrounding them.

"Gone or dead," Daryl rasps. "Like us if we don't get moving."

She follows at that, wincing as the sounds of terror becomes nothing more than the cracked groans and cries of the dead. The gunfire ceases, the screams of terror become nothing.

Behind them the herd surges, pulsing in every direction. A few walkers cry out and lope after the pair bee-lining for the black motorcycle parked near the road. Once Daryl has mounted the bike, Cal drapes herself behind him, her fingers coiling into the fabric at his waist. The motor roars to life and they drive, tires throwing dirt and rock into the air.

Only the wisp of a hand snatching at her back tells her of how close they had come.

* * *

They drive on to the highway, and it is there that they stop and wait. The car where they had left the message for Sophia is the only thing that makes sense to either of them. Daryl crawls atop the cab, while Cal sits on the hood. For a long while they sit there, waiting to see if anyone else made it.

If anyone else had survived.

Over and over again Cal finds herself back in the chaos, being unable to do anything, and watching as Patricia and Beth succumb to the walkers. She had been close enough to do something – if only she had reached out, if only she had tried. It's a bitter feeling, one that she chides herself for but is unable to stop. Survivor's guilt was something they all had to deal with from now on.

Eventually the ache of her arm brings her to reality, and she looks down at the duct tape that wraps around her arm. The frayed edges of the torn tape makes her blanch, and she shrugs out of her shirt to better look at the damage, praying that in the struggle she hadn't been bitten. Even a scrape of the teeth could be enough.

She hesitates, glancing up at Daryl who looks the other way. The truth of her situation is moments from her, and already she can imagine the consequences of a small slip, a small gash.

One breath. Two.

She tugs the sleeve down and grimaces. A black bruise already crawls along the entirety of her swollen forearm, the skin at the edges fading to purple and blue. She takes a deep breath and runs her hand along her skin, wincing at the sharp pain lancing up her arm. And then she freezes.

Her fingers come away wet and red.

She can feel it building, a panic so real and tenacious that she chokes. She wipes at her arm frantically, choking back the pain of her injury.

Already images of her turning and attacking the rest of the group plague her, leaping in front of her eyes like memories rather than possibilities. She can feel cold metal against her forehead, and smell the oil and grease of a gun. She can imagine what immutable hunger must be like – endless and all encompassing.

She rubs harder and harder, trying to scratch her own fouled skin away.

"Settle down."

Hands suddenly coil about her own, and she lets out a gasped snarl as she tries to pull away. The grip is unyielding, and she blinks up at Daryl leaning over her, his eyes narrowed and lips tight as if he's dealing with nothing more than a petulant child. "Damn it, settle Cal!"

She tries to tug her hands away, but he holds firm. Instead of letting her go, he pulls her to his chest and lets her sink against him with a quiet gasp. She doesn't sob, he notices. She sits in silence against him and gasps and hiccups and breathes as if the world is ending. Even her torment is quiet.

He almost hadn't found her she was so damn quiet.

For a long moment they stand there in the grey morning, Cal pressed against Daryl's chest and he clutching her to him. Again she tries to pull from his grip, wanting nothing more than to flee before she starts ripping into them.

She doesn't want to turn.

She doesn't want to become one of _them_.

"Settle down," Daryl murmurs again.

Eventually she calms down, breathing into his neck. She shakes, but he doesn't know why – not until he pushes her away and looks her in the eye. The guilt there is enough to make him growl, and she twists one of her arms in his hand until he looks down at it in question.

For a moment he forgets to breathe. A daunting thought lingers in his mind: maybe he hadn't found her fast enough.

Black and purple bruises are not his main concern, but rather the bright contrast of her blood. It makes his heart stop, and then his own breath comes out in a rattling gasp. He makes her sit down on the hood of the car and looks at her arm, folding it over in his hand to better look at the swollen skin.

"I don't see any bite marks," Daryl mutters after a moment, to which his own relief is met with a bitter laugh. He glances at her.

"He got me through the duct tape," Cal mutters, and Daryl looks at her discarded shirt. He lets her arm fall down and grabs the shirt, twisting the damaged arm in his hands. It doesn't take long to find the torn edges, but he lets out a breath when he realizes it isn't torn enough to have meant tooth to skin contact.

"The pressure must have rubbed you raw," Daryl says. "Ain't no way he got you with his teeth."

Cal lets out a choked sigh, "but what if-"

"No," Daryl interrupts.

Cal starts at his vehemence.

It is that moment that they hear a car approaching, and Daryl reaches over and grabs her long sleeved shirt, tugging it back over her shoulders. She watches him, how gentle he is as he helps her slide her injured arm through the sleeve.

"Daryl? Cal?" The voice belongs to Dale.

Daryl gives her a pointed look as he buttons the sleeve, effectively hiding her injury, before he turns to greet Dale with a nod.

"I thought we were the only ones," Dale gasps, sliding from the green SUV.

Carol crawls out behind him, her eyes wet, but shining at the sight of them. Cal stiffens when Carol embraces her – she awkwardly pats the other woman on the back.

"Are we the only ones so far?" Dale asks, swinging his rifle over his shoulder.

Cal nods, "we've been here for a few minutes."

"Heads up," Daryl calls down from the top of the car, and they all blink towards two more cars trailing towards them.

One by one the rest of the group slinks from their vehicles, joy upon seeing the faces of friends and loved ones evident. Maggie and Glenn rush from their car, both of them lighting up upon seeing Hershel with Rick and Carl. Lori lets out a cry upon finding her family, racing past the truck she had shared with T-Dog to clutch fervently at her son and husband.

"Thought we lost you," T-Dog says, sidling up to Cal with a grin.

It is only as the group celebrates their survival do they realize the fallen. Hershel and Maggie clutch fervently at one another, their eyes scanning familiar faces in search of their own. Hershel meets Cal's eye for a moment, but its enough for him to recognize the look in her eyes – and the soft shake of her head.

The man lets out a cry of disbelief, sinking to his knees. Maggie clutches at him, her own soft sobs echoing in the morning light.

"Andrea?" Rick asks, his eyes falling to the group.

Carol shakes her head. "She... I don't know."

Dale lets out a sound.

"Jimmy?" Maggie asks, her voice hardly a whisper from behind her tears.

Rick looks down at his feet, his expression grim. "He didn't make it."

"Shane?" Lori asks.

The group goes quiet, waiting. Daryl and Cal glance at one another, the truth of the farmhouse between them. Carl looks into his hands. Rick takes a sharp breath and then shakes his head.

"No."

One by one they sink down, resting on or against cars. The reality of their situation, of what they had just survived and of whom they'd just lost, a weight few of them are used to carrying. They mourn as well as they can in their new world, wiping at their tears and hoping their quiet sobs don't attract the dead.

"Where do we go?" Maggie asks after a while, her eyes wide as she considers her father's fallen face. "What do we do?"

"We keep moving," Rick grinds out from where he has collapsed against a truck with his son and wife under either arm. "We _have_ to keep moving."

"We need to find somewhere," Dale says, his voice bleak. "Winter isn't far away."

"I know," Rick agrees. "I know."

Afterwards, they collect what they can from the cars around them, taking whatever Cal and Daryl had not taken during their previous trip. They siphon what gas they can find, wincing at just how little the cars have. Eventually Daryl spots a walker in the distance. The group splits into their cars, Rick leading the way through the maze of the highway with his family.

Daryl looks at Cal, at her arm cradled against her chest.

"Best keep an eye on you," he says, holding out a hand.

She blinks at him, and takes it, swinging up behind him on his motorcycle.

* * *

They drive for as long as the fuel lasts, the number of cars dwindling as they sputter and fail. Eventually they're crammed together, the seats full as they pile in one by one. Only Cal and Daryl remain attached, the two of them weaving ahead of the group as scouts.

It is late in the evening by the time the last of the cars lose fuel – even Daryl's motorcycle succumbs. The group is forced to move on, walking along the highway on high alert, carrying empty gasoline tanks and praying they'll stumble across any abandoned cars.

By the time night falls they're out in the open with no prospects. Daryl finds a small niche – the remains of an old building that offers them some semblance of shelter. Despite their protests, their complaints and fears, the group follows him and Rick into the dark. They settle themselves amongst the old stones green from moisture. The night is chilled by the coming fall, and they huddle together for warmth, and in fear.

Outside of the high walls and into the trees, Cal uses the last of the water to wipe away the blood on her arm, wincing at the clear marks where her skin had been rubbed raw. She cleans it as best she can before tugging her shirt back on, buttoning the sleeve up with a pained hiss.

"You okay?"

She starts, turning to find Daryl standing behind her, crossbow in hand. His eyes are soft as he scans her face, looking for any sign of her discomfort – or any signs of the change, she thinks.

"Besides nearly losing my arm," she shrugs. "I'm fine."

Daryl moves up beside her, reaching out with gentle fingers to pinch at the duct tape that had protected her arm. He rolls it between his fingers – she watches with wide eyes and held breath.

"Smart," he says.

"Not smart enough," she mutters.

"You're here, ain't ya?"

Cal shrugs, "it felt pretty close back there."

They go quiet at that, both of them lost to their own nightmares. Cal remembers that hands scrabbling at her belly, and the walker shaking its head like a mad dog. It had been a surreal moment, one where she had felt nothing but anger.

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

Together they walk back to their makeshift camp. Cal retreats to a corner and settles down. T-Dog looks like he wants to approach her, but she shuts her eyes to feign sleep.

Daryl settles nearby, watching Cal out of the corner of his eye.

For a long while no one speaks, until soft wispy clouds of breath float before their eyes.

"I'm cold," Carl says, cuddling close to his mother with wide eyes.

Rick reaches out and touches his son's head.

"Rick," Lori murmurs, her eyes imploring. "A fire?"

Rick's jaw sets, and he glances at Cal tucked away in a corner – distanced from the group. At Lori's question, Cal's eyebrows noticeably raise in disbelief. Her eyes are still shut, but her dismay is evident. If they were going to survive these next days, they were going to need her.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Rick mutters back.

Lori glowers at him.

Carol sits forward, lips drawn tight. "A small fire isn't going to hurt-"

"You ever hear about light discipline?" Cal says, eyes still shut.

Carol slinks back, her eyes lowered.

"There will be no fire," Rick clarifies.

Lori stares at them both, her brow furrowed. "Rick-"

A sound in the dark of the forest causes everyone to pause. Carl whimpers against his mother's shoulder, fingers clutching at her jacket. Carol whimpers, T-Dog stills. Cal opens one eye and looks out of the shadowed archway of what had once been a door. Daryl stands against the wall, crossbow held at the ready.

"What was that?"

One by one they succumb to panic as they remember the night before, the treachery of a single gunshot calling down upon them the legions of hell. Without vehicles, what hope did they have? Without fuel, food or water, what could they hope for?

"I'm leaving," Maggie announces, standing up. She clutches a gun to her chest – one of the few they have left.

"You ain't going anywhere," Rick says, standing up.

"Then do something," Carol hisses.

Rick's jaw sets, his temper flaring at her accusatory tone. "I am – I'm keeping this group together," he seethes, eyes wild and dark. "I – Shane..."

Cal and Daryl exchange a glance.

"I killed my best friend," Rick breathes. Carl begins to cry into his mother's collar. "He gave me no choice. He drew on me, and-"

Rick hesitates. He wipes his hand across his brow and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I killed my best friend," he repeats. "He drew on me. He drew on me."

Silence is all encompassing. They sit in the dark and they exchange pensive glances. Daryl looks away, jaw tight. Cal shuts her eyes and sits in her own darkness.

"I _am_ doing something, but if you think you can do better, then go ahead." Rick steps aside, motioning to the entrance behind him. "See how long you last. My hands are clean – everything I've done, I've done for _this group._ "

Carol is looking away, eyes to the ground. Maggie digs her palms into her eyes, sniffling as she listens to the quiet words of a man bearing the weight of the world.

"So go. Go if you want, but let's get one thing straight," Rick breathes. "If you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."


	18. Chapter 18

The night sees them huddling together for warmth. They're scared and cold enough that they don't sleep, staring into the dark with wide eyes.

Cal remains distant, her eyes shut despite the soft panic roiling in her – the treacherous thought that _maybe, just maybe_ this is it. She hasn't a fever, but the pain pulses so unbearably along her arm, bubbling under her skin, that she can think of nothing else but a slow death and an eternal thereafter.

This is an enemy she cannot fight; an enemy she cannot escape. She can't _fight like hell –_ not this. Never this. All she can do is sit and wait to see if the fever sets in or the chills start.

Her uncertainty is a silent hell – one that chases her through the night.

* * *

Daryl keeps watch at the archway for most of the night, his eyes dark as he considers the impenetrable shadow that surrounds them. The moon's light, despite her fullness, is muted by the thick trees growing overhead. He can hardly see a few feet in front of him, but he knows where she is; he knows where she sits stoically against the mossy rock wall, eyes shut and jaw tight with pain.

_Best keep an eye on y_ _ou,_ he'd said.

He watches her for the group, for his own conscience, and for her. On the highway her fear had been real and so opposite the defiant woman he had met in the woods. There had been no hope, but a disbelief and uncertainty of something she could not escape. Even with his reassurances, which she had only halfheartedly accepted, there had been resignation in her eyes. She had been convinced she was already dead.

Daryl would be lying to himself if he said he knew what it was like. That was the sort of rattling disbelief he could only imagine. Even when he had wandered back to the farm, half dead already, he hadn't been faced with a walker bite. He'd been too lost to delirium to fully understand his end – the only thing he had known was that it was not a certainty, but rather a _potential._

He looks at Cal again, her jaw tight with her worry.

It takes him a moment to realize he's mimicking her expression, his own jaw growing tense as he grinds his teeth with concern. He scowls and looks away, shrugging a shoulder as if to shake himself of whatever _that_ was.

When he glances back at her she is looking at him.

"Thank you," she says.

He hesitates, and then nods.

When she shuts her eyes, her expression is soft, her worry seemingly gone. It is all he needs.

* * *

The dawn is cool and grey, and their breath lingers in the air before their eyes. As Rick pushes off the ground from where he sits with his family, the others rise to join him. Their eyes, dark and hollowed, follow him as he stands at the archway and considers the outlying woods.

"Ain't nothing all night," Daryl murmurs, eyes as dark and hollow as the rest.

Rick nods, his hand resting on Daryl's shoulder a moment in silent appraisal. He turns to the group with their tired eyes and wane expressions, hands clasped tightly together or bound about themselves. The cold of the grey morning presses on them, and he can see their resentment for the chill, and for him, burning in their eyes.

"We need to move as soon as we're able. We need to find _something, somewhere,_ " he says.

"We're tired, Rick," Lori's voice is sharp.

For a long moment he considers them; their somber expression; their quaking and quivering bodies. "I know," he replies. "But we can't just sit here and _hope_ the herd will pass us, or that Randall's people won't find us. We need to move – we need to get further away from the farm. We need to find shelter, and food."

They shrink back at that – at the intensity of his gaze and voice. Rick looks each and every one of them in the eye, and in that look they find his intensity to be unyielding. Some of them see hope, and some see a man who had murdered his best friend.

"You can be tired when we're safe."

Lori bristles in discontent, but Carl's fingers pinch at her elbow and she quiets. She glances at each of the people around her. The ones who quiver and shy are fewer than the malcontent. Carol looks to the ground as if she has been struck, and Hershel stares in resignation at some unseen ghost. The rest stare with wild eyes at Rick, their lips drawn and tight in grim expressions. Only Daryl and Cal stand off to the side, still as the wilderness around them.

"Rick-" Lori begins, but a glance from her estranged husband silences her.

"We need to go," is the only thing he offers her, the only thing he offers any of them. "Now."

They collect what little they have and move from the mossy ruin. A grey mist engulfs the world, and they stumble close together through the woods to the highway. They twitch and jump and spook at every sound, eyes wild with fear as dark silhouettes drift in and out of the fog.

As big as the highway is, it yields nothing. A few stray cars further along offer enough gas to get the SUV and one of the trucks running. Daryl begrudgingly leaves the motorcycle beside Carol's Volkswagon, a last parting glance the only goodbye he surrenders.

They pile into the vehicles. Cal finds herself between Daryl and T-Dog in the back seat of the SUV. Carl smiles tiredly at her from where he sits between his mother and father.

"Where are we going?" Lori asks through tight lips.

Rick doesn't say anything as he starts the car and pulls out from the shoulder. He doesn't say anything at all until he glances in the rear view mirror and makes sure the truck loaded up with the others is following close behind.

"We need gas, supplies, _shelter,"_ he glances at Lori for a moment and notes her frown. "It'll be like before."

"That's not reassuring, Rick," she glances down at Carl who is already asleep at her side. She runs her fingers through his hair; something to reassure her more than her sleeping child.

Rick looks away. His jaw tight as he considers the road that stretches before them. "It's not supposed to be."

Nothing is said after that – not for a long while.

They drive the back roads that run parallel to the highway. There is no certainty but to move forward away from the farm, there is nothing for them there but pain and death. Even the highway eventually falls away, and they follow the winding roads for as long as they can.

Occasionally they are forced from their seats; Cal, Daryl, and T-Dog work together to push abandoned vehicles off the road and collect what little gas they can. Sometimes they find an abandoned car, doors drawn shut and covered in dust. They pry open the doors and take what they can; a sweater, an empty bottle, a moth eaten blanket.

They never say a word.

It isn't long before they find a gas station at the side of the road tucked back into the trees. Rick stops the vehicle and stares at the row of gas pumps. A homemade sign taps against each pump – _Empty._

"Shit," T-Dog breathes.

"We have enough gas to get us to the next station," Rick glances in the rearview mirror. "But we need supplies – food, water, a map."

"Gas station like this'll have some hunting and camping gear," Daryl says, biting at his thumbnail. He glances at Cal's arm and away before Rick notices his attention. "Medical supplies too."

"A few of us will go in," Rick says to Lori. "The rest of you stay in the cars, be ready to drive."

They pile out of their cars. Rick, Daryl, and Cal meet Glenn and Maggie at the nose of their car, and together they slink towards the gas station. The building seems relatively untouched from outside, the only indication of the station's abandonment are the signs draped across the gas pumps.

Glenn tries the door, wincing as it opens with a twinkle of bells. The sound leaves them all breathless, waiting with weapons poised. A low groan echoes from the dark belly of the store, and they hear the heavy, scraping footfalls of a walker as it ambles out from behind the counter. Glenn groans, but it is Cal who steps forward to slide her knife into the walker's temple.

Rick nods as Cal steps past the walker, into the belly of the dark store, Daryl close behind her with his crossbow ready. "We need to be quiet," he says to Glenn and Maggie. "We need to conserve ammo – we need to find other ways to deal with the walkers."

They nod with tight, determined jaws.

"Look what happened to the farm – one gun shot was all it took."

It isn't hard to convince them, and they draw their knives from their belts with shaky hands.

They begin sweeping the store, moving together through the dark building, inching their way further into the shadowed belly. There are a smattering of supplies; a couple of bottles of water behind the cash counter, a few cans of Spam. They gather what they can into shopping bags and camouflage backpacks, filtering through the aisles, and spilling through closed doors with knives ready. The bags begin to fill.

It isn't long before Cal finds herself in the bathroom, the small window offering little light, but it's enough see the toilet is dried up, and the sink is dusty. She stands in the silence of the drab, grey little room, eyes pulsing with her sleeplessness as she takes in the tired little room.

She pushes the toilet seat down and sits, her fingers fumbling at the button of her shirt. The fabric peels away to reveal her arm; the scabs, the bruising. She winces at the heat of it, but she can't tell if it's just infected or _infected._

She doesn't say anything as she looks at it, but she thinks of _a lot of things._ Her fear had overcome her on the highway, and it hangs around her still. She feels weak; she feels like a coward.

And someone had been there. _Daryl_ had been there to see her unmade. He had seen all of it.

She wishes he hadn't.

The bitter taste of her own cowardice has never been so embarrassing, but she can't tell if it's because of the way she had acted, or the way she had acted in front of _him._ She almost laughs at the normalcy of it all; of course she would feel self conscious during the _apocalypse,_ especially when it came to her potential death.

She starts when the door to the bathroom opens, but relaxes when she realizes it is Daryl.

"You good?" He asks, easing the door shut quietly. It breathes a soft hiss as it closes.

Cal sits back, leaning against the tank of the toilet, her arm resting against her thigh. She doesn't know what to say to him, her embarrassment still alive and real. She glances at him, trying to train herself to remain the same calm, stoic expression she reserved for every other exchange she had.

But he can see it there in the dark of her eyes; a moment of hesitation as she gathers her words.

"I'm fine."

He cradles his crossbow in the nook of his arm, watching Cal in that careful way of his. She wonders if she ever unnerves him the way he unnerves her.

"Daryl," her tone changes, her voice catching. She coughs, unsure of what she was going to say. She grasps for something, anything. "It means a lot to me," she says quickly. He quirks a brow at her, and she sighs and explains, "for keeping an eye on me."

He looks away from her, but nods. "Ain't nothing."

"No," she says. "It is something."

He bites at his lip and nods, his eyes and expression are suddenly light.

It doesn't last long however. The door opens and Rick greets them with a somber expression. It's only then that Cal realizes he's staring at her arm, and Daryl has taken a step in front of her.

She notices Rick's hand resting on his gun.

"Daryl," Cal murmurs carefully.

He doesn't say a thing. He doesn't even look back at her. He stares Rick squarely in the eye, jaw tense and lips tight. And then he moves to the side, and allows the other man past with a withering look. Rick returns Daryl's stare, and then he turns his attention to Cal slumped forlornly against the bathroom wall.

"Your arm."

"Yeah."

"I saw it this morning."

"I was going to tell you."

"Were you?" Rick asks.

"Only if it mattered," she breathes, sitting forward and dragging her sleeve down with a tired grunt.

"You mean only when it's too late."

"It might have been too late the moment it happened."

"She might not be infected," Daryl injects.

"What?" Rick asks.

"Thing chomped down on her taped sleeve."

"When? The farm?"

Cal nods, her voice thick with disgust, " _I_ wasn't fast enough."

It isn't a lot, but it's enough to placate him. Rick leans against the counter, eyes on Cal. He hardly knows her, but in the short time he had known her, he is unsurprised that she wouldn't confide in him. Hell, he wouldn't have been surprised if he had woken up in the morning to find her gone.

"Okay," Rick says.

She looks at him, surprised. "Okay?" She repeats.

"I'm keeping an eye on her," Daryl offers.

Rick looks between them, and nods. "Alright."

"It doesn't need to be a big deal unless it becomes a big deal," Cal buttons up the sleeve of her shirt and looks at Rick plainly enough that he can see the challenge in her eye: she doesn't want him to tell the others, she wants to keep it to herself.

"Nowadays that's asking a lot," Rick says.

"I know."

* * *

Glenn leans across the counter, digging his finger into the crisp paper, following the long line of the highway. The map had been neatly tucked alongside several others in a display near the cashier. It had been covered in dust and forgotten, but had brightened his expression more than the cans of Spam had.

"We could mark where the herd came through, what direction it was moving," he explains to Maggie, oblivious to the fact she can't seem to look away from him. "We can mark where we've seen people, or where we know people are -"

"Sounds great," Rick walks out from the back of the store, Daryl and Cal slinking behind him.

"It _is_ a great idea," Maggie says, her voice defensive. Glenn blushes at her tone.

Rick nods in agreement, ignoring her hostility, "you're right, _it is_."

She goes quiet and looks away.

"It'll give us an idea of where we might be safe," Glenn offers. "Well... Safer."

Rick claps a hand on his shoulder in appreciation and looks down at the map. Glenn produces a red marker from his pocket – "Something pilfered from behind the counter," he explains, and marks where the farm house had been with a small _X._ He scribbles a quick ' _Blocked'_ on the highway where the RV had been stuck before the farm; he draws another _X_ across the small town only a few miles away from the farm, where Randall had come from.

He draws an arrow in the direction the herd had been travelling.

And then they sit there in silence and look down at the map, at the scribbles Glenn marks it with, at the arrows and crossed off sections that slowly dwindle their known world to something foreign – and it reveals the rest of Georgia to be as unknown as ever.

What roads would be blocked? What towns would be razed to the ground or picked over by the dead and living alike?

Where and when would they find others – maybe even Randall's people?

"Where do we go from here?" Glenn asks, his face falling.

The others are quiet for some time, until Maggie pushes her finger down on the map. "There is a development here."

"Not too far," Rick says as he looks at where she points. "We might be able to make it. There are a few back roads."

"It's a gated community," she explains.

"Sounds like a death trap," Daryl grouses from near the front door, peering out the window towards their parked cars and people inside.

Maggie shrugs, "we don't have a lot of options. There is a lot of open farmland around here – who knows if the herd is coming this way. A community with gates and fences might slow them down."

"Might lock us in too," Cal mutters.

Glenn looks at Rick, eyes pleading. "We don't have _a lot of options."_

He glances at Daryl and Cal, their eyes narrowed, but their words shut behind tight lips. "Alright," he nods, turning to Maggie and Glenn. "It sounds like our best option for _right now."_

* * *

They gathered what they could and continued on. Occasionally they would turn and wind their way through a graveyard of cars, or they would glide across an endless expanse of empty roadway. And despite the greyness to their world, there is an electricity to the air. Only that morning they had suffered a hopelessness, and now there is an end in sight.

An end that gives them a brief glimpse of hope.

The SUV is quiet, but only because Lori still refuses to say anything to Rick, and Carl is curled in her lap, snoring softly. Cal stares blankly ahead, and Daryl is too occupied with the grey world passing by to say anything. T-Dog is the only one who tries to say something, and every attempt is met with single words or short sentences.

"Find anything cool in the store?"

"A map," Daryl says.

"Any food?"

"Some."

"What do you think of this plan?"

"I don't."

T-Dog goes quiet and glances at Cal. When she doesn't say anything he looks away.

"Can we pull over so I can ride in the _happier_ car?" He asks.

Rick looks in the rearview mirror, "No."

* * *

They get to the gated community shortly, the back roads proving empty. Only one or two walkers struggle at the side of the road, but they ignore them and speed past. When they finally turn onto the final drive, Rick slows the SUV down. They press against the glass, faces white with a desperate eagerness for this to be something they can cling too.

They pull up to the gate which is closed and chained shut. Rick steps from the SUV, followed closely by Daryl and T-Dog. T-Dog and Daryl slink up to the gate, eyes narrowed as they look past the iron bars and into the quiet belly of the seemingly untouched community hidden within.

Rick appraises the metal sign sitting proudly on the brick wall, a few leaves from a freshly naked tree clinging standing nearby to the embossed lettering. He brushes them off, adding to the pile already on the ground.

_Wiltshire Estates._

"Sounds fancy," Daryl grunts.

"We still have those bolt cutters?" Rick asks as he moves up beside the men, giving the lock a sharp tug.

T-Dog nods and jogs back to the truck where the rest of the group waits patiently. When he comes back with the cutters, Rick takes them and nods to the two men to be ready. It takes him a moment to get the leverage, but he snaps one of the links easily enough, letting the rest of the chain to slither down to the cement.

They swing the gates open, wincing at the slow groan of its hinges.

And then they stand there, waiting.

For a long moment they say nothing. They hardly breathe. They don't move. They simply let the silence of the community flow through them, and in it they feel their fear twist and writhe.

Rick looks back over his shoulder to the truck and SUV, and nods his head.

The three men enter Wiltshire Estates, and the rest wait outside.

* * *

They wait for twenty minutes, but it is the longest twenty minutes of their lives. Cal exits the SUV with a disgruntled expression on her face, ignoring the sharp look Lori shoots her when she ignores the other woman's concerns of leaving the vehicle.

Cal paces in front of the truck, her hackles raised. She isn't one to sit back and let others scout, and she feels a deep dread that something is going to go awry.

And then she reprimands herself, because this is her problem – her need to control every moment of her own life. This is why she doesn't do well with groups, she can hardly trust them to be thorough and do a good job and not get everyone killed.

This is why she prefers to be alone.

Groups splinter. People splinter.

She glances back at the SUV and blinks in surprise to find Lori standing only a few feet from her.

"I'm surprised you didn't go," Lori's tone is casual, but the words cause Cal to grimace.

"Me too," she says, and it's just the thing to make Lori give her a double take. "I don't want to be here. Fences and gates never did anyone any good."

Back and forth. Back and forth.

"I _hate_ fences."

"Might prove useful with a herd."

"Or it might not," Cal snaps back, her lips pulled in a snarl.

Lori goes quiet.

Cal feels bad for a moment – almost. "Fences and gates can keep things in as well as it keeps them out," Cal shrugs. She moves over to the pile of leaves near the sign, toeing one of the few golden ones left. She stops, and then begins pacing. Back and forth, back and forth. "I got a first row seat in Atlanta. I watched a lot of people pile behind their fences and their gates. I watched a lot of people die."

Lori frowns."No, they napalmed Atlanta. I was there -"

"Yeah," Cal's voice is quiet. "They napalmed Atlanta _after_ the fences and gates didn't work."

It's then that Rick, T-Dog, and Daryl come out of a nearby house, weapons easy in their hands and their walk confident. Lori looks away from Cal, at the truth she represents, to her husband who refuses to meet her eye.

No one sees the sign half buried under the leaves.

_All Dead, Do not Enter._

 


	19. Chapter 19

Something about being behind a fence keeps her awake. Despite the shadows ringing her eyes, the hollowness of her bones, the deep tired clinging to her very soul, Cal can't sleep. She bids to take first watch, slinking to the windowsill.

"You good?" Rick asks.

She looks at her arm, and then nods.

"You sure?" He doesn't clarify - he doesn't need to. He doesn't look at her arm, but looks instead at Daryl.

Daryl glances at Cal.

"Yeah," he says. "We good."

* * *

It is dark. A kind of dark that lends horror to the shifting shadows; hands become claws, faces distorted into ghoulish masks. The road below shivers with the shadows of a windy night.

From where she sits at the window Cal can see down the road, deeper into the heart of the gated community, Wiltshire Estates. The night only lends her so much vision, but it is enough. Enough that the others had tucked themselves together on the room floor with relieved sighs, huddling together for comfort more than warmth, confident in her vigilance.

Across the room, Daryl leans against the door. She can see the barest outline of him, his back to the closed door with his crossbow leaning against the wall at his side and his buck knife in hand. He's awake like she is, too cautious and protective to let his guard down. His body shifts in the dark, and he stiffens. She can't tell if he is looking at her; she can't tell if he's caught her looking at him. It's too dark to see anything but the barest suggestion of what is human and what is not.

Daryl suddenly relaxes. Cal turns back to the window, and the bare and empty road below.

The window is chilly against her skin.

This reminds her too much of Atlanta, of huddling in the closet in the apartment complex. The illusion of safety had been tentative; she had spent more time convincing herself that she would be fine than actually making steps to make it happen. This place, this idyllic community with it's tall walls and gates lent the same illusion.

It was dangerous.

She shrinks back in alarm when the darkness shifts in front of her eyes, and Daryl is suddenly there. The soft light of the moon outlines his features, lending a sharpness to his expression that makes her follow his gaze out the window. Nothing but blackness stretches before them.

They are silent for a long while. They sit close enough that their breath mingles together, lending its own warmth that neither seek from the group. It blankets them in familiarity, and for a moment they are complacent.

But only for a moment.

Daryl makes a sound in the back of his throat, and Cal blinks her way back into the present. Even in the dark she notes Daryl's pointed look at her arm, cradled against her stomach.

"It's fine."

"Think y'er in the clear."

"I hope so."

"Bet it hurts."

"It's fine."

"Mhm."

They stare down at the road below, at the shadows that twist and sway and bend in the wind. The warmth creeps back between them – but only for a moment. Daryl shifts back – and the warmth of his closeness goes with him.

For a moment she feels a regret.

"Just keepin' an eye on you," Daryl murmurs, and he slips back into the dark. Cal doesn't seem him until he's once again leaning against the door. She can feel his eyes on her.

She looks away.

The hours pass slowly. The others sleep, and Cal and Daryl watch.

* * *

The morning is grey with the onset of fall.

The sky is charcoal when Glenn touches her on the arm and nods to the coiled blankets he had only just risen from. "They're still warm," he offers with an awkwardness that makes Cal's lips twitch.

"Thanks," she whispers.

Glenn rubs the back of his head, "Rick is having us scout out some nearby buildings while you guys rest, and then we'll all sweep the community in the afternoon."

"Is Rick going with you?"

Glenn shakes his head, and backs away. He flicks his finger down at the blankets, and then throws her a quick thumbs up.

"G'night," he whispers, and he leaves with Maggie in tow.

Cal slides from her seat at the window to curl herself into the mound of blankets. She hardly recognizes the soft words of Maggie speaking to Daryl until he's suddenly there, sinking awkwardly down between her and the wall. He's tense and awkward as he stretches out on the ground. Cal stares at him in the grey light – he catches her eye and then looks away.

"Just makin' sure you don't bite anybody," he grouses, frowning up at the ceiling as he tucks a hand behind his head.

"What if I bite you?"

"Shush."

"I didn't say anything."

His glower is fake.

"It's okay," she says, and his brows draw together in confusion.

_It's okay to be here._

_It's okay to be beside me._

_It's okay to want to be here._

She offers him a fake yawn.

"I'm going to bed, Daryl."

He grunts as she shuts her eyes.

It is only when her breathing evens out that he finally shuts his own.

* * *

She wakes to silence. She had dreamed of a man leaving her to die in the middle of the road, except his face isn't the contorted and angry expression of Merle, but the quiet and calculating stare of Daryl.

She sits up, wincing as her arm throbs with pain. Daryl sits against the wall as he chews on a spoonful of beans. He sucks the tomato sauce off his fingers.

"Found you some clothes," Daryl grunts between mouthfuls, he finally glances up at her and nods towards a pile of clothing. A roll of duct tape sits off to the side.

She doesn't say thank you, or ask him where he found it. She sits up and pulls the clothing into her lap. The shirt is long sleeved flannel, something warm. The pants are big, but she doesn't care. The duct tape sits on top of a pile of celebrity gossip magazines. At her curious glance Daryl shrugs.

"Lil' thicker than jus' duct tape."

The thought makes her hesitate.

"What?" He grunts, eyes narrowing at her.

"Thanks."

He ducks down to his can of beans with a shrug.

She takes the proffered pile and heads for the adjacent bathroom. The pale light filtering in through frosted glass window makes her hesitate in front of the mirror; a haggard woman stares back at her, more of a ghost than a person. She blinks and turns away.

She changes out of her old clothes, pausing long enough to eye the dark bruising on her arm, the old wound on her side, and the yellowed skin along her ribs and stomach. So changed was the world that the blemishes on her skin seem more inconvenient than concerning.

They were just wounds. They would fade and heal.

Her eyes slide over the bandage on her arm, refusing to acknowledge it. Not yet.

Cal shrugs into the shirt and pants, cinching the jeans tight around her waist and rolling the legs up several times.

She comes out of the bathroom with her sleeves rolled up, exposing the bandages around her arm. Daryl looks at them for a moment before turning back to his beans – his nonchalance makes breathing feel easier.

Cal sits down at the window and peels back the simple strips of cloth and gauze. She winces once or twice, but goes still when she reveals her arm; blackened with bruises, laced with superficial lacerations. In the moment the pain had been very real, made shallow only by her adrenaline; now the pain is a dull ache that echoes down to the very bone.

Daryl lifts himself up and moves towards her. He sucks the sauce off his fingers, and holds his hand up to her forehead. He's so close she feels her breath steal out of her chest - she tells herself it's anticipation of what his verdict might be, or maybe that his touch sparks across her skin.

"Ain't got no fever," Daryl offers, retracting his hand. He leans against the wall, his eyes glued on her arm while he spoons another mouthful of beans into his mouth - as if he's not staring at what might have once been a fatal wound, as if he hadn't just checked her temperature only moments before.

"Usually sets in by now," Cal agrees, remembering the cop with the sad tune. His bite hadn't been particularly deep, but the fever had set in only half a day after the fact - and then he had gone, whistling into the sunset.

"Y'er fine."

"Okay."

Silence stretches between them. Safe and familiar. Daryl finishes his can of beans; Cal stares out the window.

She laughs. "It's stupid."

"Hm?" Daryl glances up.

"I thought I was dead, and I lost my nerve." She doesn't really know what else to say.

"Ain't no problem in that."

She leans against the window, her breath fogging the glass. The whole situation was compounded by her embarrassment; she had lost herself in the moment, overwhelmed by the promise of a certain death. Daryl had seen it all, and it made her flush. He had seen _every_ moment.

"I'm sorry," she says.

Suddenly she feels the warmth of his hand, his fingers coiling tentatively around her hand, seeking permission. She lets him draw her hand closer, his eyes ghosting the superficial wounds, and dark, deep bruising.

Cal stares at his hand, how it coils lightly around her own as if she might break.

"It'll be fine." Despite his pointed look at her bruises and cuts, she feels that he is reassuring her in her emotional distress. She looks up at him, watching as he worries his lip.

"Should heal up alright," he adds as an afterthought, and looks up to meets her gaze. Absentmindedly he brushes her pulse with his thumb; it feels like lightning.

Her brow furrows at the sensation, and she looks down to where he holds her wrist.

His eyes follow her's, his thumb going still. He releases her hand and steps away, a sudden stiffness to him as he wheels about and moves towards the door.

And then Dale shows up.

"Rick wants to -" Dale's voice flourishes his arrival, he peels through the door, brushing shoulders with Daryl who seems more than eager to escape the stifling tension of the room. He watches Daryl's retreat before turning to Cal, "- start sweeping the development..."

Cal stares at her wrist.

"Cal, what happened to your arm?"

Dale's careful voice shatters her from her stupor. She glances up sharply, and back again to the mottled flesh of her injured forearm. She doesn't move to draw her sleeve down – what use would there be to hide or deny something Dale had clearly already seen? – and instead turns to regard the older man staring at her arm in horror. She offers him a deadpan expression.

"A walker."

"Oh _Ca_ _l,"_ he sighs.

She shakes her head, "it _tried,_ but failed," she nods to the roll of duct tape Daryl had found for her. "I'm just gnawed up."

"Rick knows?"

"Yeah."

"And Daryl, of course."

Her wrist feels like its on fire. She drags her fingers against her pulse, trying to rub away the tingling and numbness of a phantom touch. "Yeah, he knows too."

Cal drags her sleeve down, and moves to grab the magazines and duct tape from where Daryl had deposited them. She binds the magazines to her arms, ignoring Dale and every ounce of his imploring kindness from where he watches her in the doorway. It doesn't take long until she's finished, and she flexes her arms against the new bindings. She tries to hide the pain; her jaw clenches and her lips pinch.

"Cal..." Dale says, watching as she tries to hide her discomfort.

"I'm fine."

He stands in her way. He glances at her arm.

"I'm fine," she reiterates tightly, and pushes past him.

His shoulders sag, and he stares into the vacant room.

* * *

Cal nearly bumps into Daryl on the landing as she tries to button the sleeves shut.

"Walkers," Daryl hisses.

Even from where she stands behind Daryl, the large window of the living room offers her a perfect view. A half dozen walkers are ambling down the streets, their stuttered growls drawing more from the shadows of the houses and alleyways of the gated community. The only relief is that they appear aimless, their eyes glazing past the house with the living and breathing occupants.

"Where'd they come from?" Rick is suddenly there, breezing into the living room with soft steps. He is at the front door before anyone blinks, peering through the floral design on the frosted glass.

Daryl positions himself to the side of the large window, sinking back into the shadowed corner. Cal is quick beside him, peeking through the curtains, eyes narrowed as more and more of them come lumbering from the dark and untouched places of the community.

At once, the others come creeping from rooms and spaces, their footsteps hesitating as Rick waves them all down. At their confused stares, Rick mouths " _walkers."_

"I thought it was safe here," Hershel whispers.

"That's the funny thing about the end of the world," Cal mutters through a tight jaw. "No where is safe."

Hershel frowns.

"How many are there?" Dale asks, moving forward. He stops when Rick holds up his hand.

"Too many."

They all look between each other, eyes wide with fear. Had they not escaped this same hell only the night before?

"Is it the herd?" Lori asks, her voice coming out in a harsh whisper.

"We're fenced in," T-Dog says. "We shut the gate behind us."

"Maybe we shouldn't have opened _th_ _e_ gate," Dale mumbles. Everyone glares.

"What do we do?" Lori asks, her eyes on Rick.

"Oh lord," Hershel breathes, " _Maggie._ "

Maggie and Glenn had gone scouting earlier that morning.

 _They could be dead,_ Cal thinks, but she doesn't say it out loud. She doesn't want the awkward boy who offered her his warm pile of blankets to be dead, that would be –

 _Unfair,_ she thinks.

 _The world isn't fair,_ she reminds herself, hardening her heart.

Rick turns and looks at everyone. "We need to leave. T-Dog, Dale, check the back alley and see if any walkers are out that way." He peers back through the peephole, and shakes his head. "We aren't going out the front door."

"Rick," Hershel's challenges. "What about my daughter?"

Rick's jaw sets, lips tight. Cal can practically hear him saying what she could not: _they could be dead._ But he doesn't. He leans forward, hand out as if to placate him. "Glenn handled himself in Atlanta. Don't worry about your daughter. They'll get out."

Hershel holds Rick's gaze, searching. The moment stretches between them, and then he nods in acceptance, shoulders falling in a _maybe, just maybe I should trust this man_ sort of way.

"I thought we might use these."

Everyone turns to regard the small voice coming from the kitchen. Carol stands with an assortment of knives in her hands. Her eyes are watery and she smiles sheepishly until Rick moves towards her. She quivers under his gaze; she practically shakes when his hand finds her shoulder – she doesn't stop until he gives her a quick squeeze and a soft _thank you._

Lori and Hershel take a knife. Rick slips a small one into Carl's hands and tells him to stay close to his mother. Lori glowers, but a quick look from her husband steals any complaints. Carol trembles as she holds her knife – a meat cleaver – in her fine, spidery hands.

"You know how to use that?" Rick asks, his voice low and kind.

Carol looks at him, a sudden courage in her voice. "Ed loved roast beef. I _hate_ it."

"We need to go, Rick," Cal hisses from her place at the window. "They're starting to get thick out there."

It is in that moment that Dale and T-Dog return, explaining in hushed whispers that the back alley is clear save for a couple walkers. They move as one, Rick leading the way from the house, the others following in suit, with Cal and Daryl taking up the rear.

The first walker they see dies quickly and without complication, but the sound of its body hitting the ground causes a second to turn and let loose a rattling moan. Two more wheel around, teeth clicking. Rick and T-Dog take them, easing their bodies to the ground lest there are others.

No one sees the rotted fingers coil around Carol's ankle. She lets out a soft gasp, her hands fumbling with the cleaver. Daryl, having been right behind her, moves forward with hurried steps. The knife sinks into the walker's temple before Carol even understands what is happening. She blinks, lets loose a single sob, and then Cal's hands curl under her arms and haul her to her feet.

"Thank you," Carol whispers, her eyes darting to Daryl and Cal.

Daryl doesn't say anything. Cal's hand pushes Carol forward.

They run.

By the time they make it to the end of the alley, several walkers have spilled in behind them. They are far enough away that it doesn't matter.

"This is some bullshit," T-Dog hisses as the group scurries through the alleyway. "Why can't we get a break?"

"Could be worse," Daryl offers dryly.

T-Dog's eyes widen, "Aw come on man! You can't say shit like that when we're _running for our lives._ "

They stop at the edge of the alleyway, Rick signaling them to hold. Cal leans forward, close enough her breath ghosts across Daryl's cheek and ear. "You know, he's got a point."

He grunts in reply; anything to hide his discomfort at her closeness.

"Run," Rick mutters, leading the group into the open.

Having chosen a house relatively close to the main drive, the gate was only a short distance away. They sprint across the asphalt quietly, but it doesn't stop the crowd of undead wandering aimlessly in the streets to turn their eyes, mouths yawning open in hunger. The initial growls are hardly more than whispers, their stumbling gait hurried as they catch sight of their prey, but eventually the volume grows as more and more walkers start a jagged lope towards the group.

Rick pulls the sliding gate open enough to slip everyone through. Daryl hangs back, knife lashing out to sink into a walker's temple. It hits the cement with a thud.

"Come on," Rick hisses.

Daryl pushes himself through the opening with a quick hop, Rick slides it shut with a gasp. It takes only moments for the first walker to slam against the gate, arms stretching through the bars with eager fingers.

As one, the group backs away. They stand there quietly, each one of them staring as walker after walker slowly press against the barred gates, hands grasping and teeth clicking.

"No," Hershel mumbles, and moves towards the gate. "No, my daughter-"

Rick grabs him by the elbow. "There are other ways out," he warns, and glances back at the group of walkers who crowd the metal gate; Hershel stands just out of their reach.

The older man nods, and turns, moving to lean against the hood of one of the trucks they had – thankfully – not brought past the brick walls and metal gate. His shoulders shake with barely restrained grief.

"Maybe we can lure them away from the gate," T-Dog offers, "and a few of us can try to find Glenn and Maggie."

"Maybe," Rick nods, hands on his hips as he studies the faces of the walkers.

Cal stands near the gate, watching the walkers push and reach and stretch towards her.

"Pro'lly thought their walls would protect 'em," Daryl murmurs to her.

Cal says nothing. Atlanta is still vivid in her mind.

"Will we be able to clear them out?" Lori asks.

Rick moves to the truck and climbs atop its nose, looking past the wall of rotting flesh pressing against the gate, into the belly of the walled community they had only just come from.

He pales.

"Where did they all come from?"

He isn't surprised to find Cal beside him.

"I don't know."

The small group that scrambles at the gate is nothing compared to the walkers stretching down the street, stumbling from behind houses, alleys, and dark places. They are seemingly unending.

" _Yeah_ , we _tried_ to warn you."

Glenn and Maggie come out from behind a copse of trees, sweat stained and dirtied. Glenn runs a bloodied hand across his forehead, and shakes his head, "they were in the church. They weren't even moving until we walked by, and then they just sort of... _came from everywhere."_

" _All Dead. Do Not Enter,"_ Dale announces. He holds up a sign covered in leaves and dirt.

"Oh, well _that's handy,"_ T-Dog says flatly.

"It's supposed to be on the gate-"

"Dale," T-Dog holds up a hand, "I know _it's supposed to be on the gate."_

Rick sighs and jumps down from the nose of the truck. He takes the sign and looks at it, fingers worrying the edges of the metal. Someone had taken the time to make it, but something – most likely a combination of poor placement and weather – had seen fit to discard it.

He tosses it down in front of the gate.

"I think we best move on."

* * *


	20. Chapter 20

They leave Wiltshire Estates.

They drift aimlessly. Their travel yielding little more than a ruined and burnt out world. Even the untraveled and neglected back roads of the county yield abandoned cars and the browned and crusted remains of the long dead. The world's end is all around them; it would not be ignored.

They try to plan a route, but their path is determined by the state of the roads – and by the herd.

From their vantage point atop a hill, they watch a dark river of bodies amble slowly through farmland, tearing down fences with the press of their numbers. Relentless and daunting and seemingly unending. They had stumbled across the mass only an hour before, they had decided to sit and watch in awe as it drifted past.

"Where are they going?" Maggie asks.

Glenn shrugs as he draws on the map - a large arrow points in the direction the herd moves. He's started littering the map with other symbols; blocked roads, burned out communities, excessive undead.

You know, _the usual._

"They're following something," Dale mutters.

"They follow whatever catches their attention," Cal says. She had seen the relentless, clueless pursuit of the dead before. "The rest of them make noise – they follow that.'

"Until something calls their attention," Dale suggests.

The conversation quiets.

Rick watches from atop a truck, eyes narrowed in thought.

Eventually the group needs to move on, and they put the cars in neutral gear before pushing them slowly down the hill opposite the herd. It is only when they're certain they're out of the herd's hearing that they start the engines, eyes fixed on the horizon _just in case._

They move on.

A day becomes days.

Those first days of travel are punctuated by tests of insubordination.

It starts and ends with Lori.

A wayward remark, a snide comment. Eventually the tension culminates. It ends when Rick puts a pistol in his wife's hands and tells her to leave if she so desires. She mutters something along the lines of _I don't even know you anymore,_ and returns the pistol. No one says anything after that. After those first days, there is only silence.

The world around them slowly transforms as days pass. Leaves turn red and orange and vibrant – and then they become muted, brittle and dull. They yellow and brown as the light slowly fails, and fall settles itself around them. Eventually the leaves rain down, leaving a scattering of dusty colours across the dying earth.

They scavenge. They poke and prod their way through anything and everything. Eventually the nights are cold enough that they start pulling musty blankets from abandoned houses, rodent infested towels and sheets from linen closets, old jackets from suitcases and cars and houses _._

One such house is lined with bodies, the walls alight with halos of dried blood.

Carol is quiet, tears staining her cheeks as she tugs and pulls at the threads of a jacket roughly her size.

"I don't think I can do this," Carol murmurs, fingers curling around the lapels of her newly acquired coat. The other woman squats beside her, huddled into a too-large jacket with the name _Madge_ across the left breast.

Cal is silent for a moment. Carol fusses in silence, her breath curling out of her in steamy gasps.

"Why not?"

Carol looks away.

"Do you want to survive?" Cal asks.

"What?" Carol looks up in surprise.

Cal shrugs, "it is a simple question. It has a simple answer."

Hell is around them. They squat in a room with the ring of bodies – a ring of people who had opted for an alternate path. The walls are painted with their transgressions; a grim showcase of one of humanity's few remaining options.

"It isn't that simple," Carol's voice wavers and break. Despite the shattered cracks, it is still _her voice._ She isn't cowering. "It is _never_ that simple."

"Right now it is. It's as simple as putting the jacket on or leaving it behind. That is the only choice you have to make _right now._ "

Carol considers her. Her big watery blue eyes are lined with fear, but they slowly take on a gentle defiance.

And then she tugs on the jacket.

* * *

They make camp in an abandoned barn surrounded by a wide and rolling field.

The vehicles are tucked out of sight of the road as they sweep the premises, finding a lone walker catatonic in a corner. It rouses at the first noise, creaking and groaning as it turns its head to regard them. Rick kills it.

They set up a collection of tents, or drape tarps between rope tied between support beams. One by one they set back to regard their homes for the night; drear and sagging shells that are their only hope of surviving a cold night.

Dinner is a quiet affair of canned beans and hot water heated over a small wisp of flame. They eat in relative silence, murmuring gently as the warmth chases the chill from their bones.

"I can take first watch," Rick offers.

"You took _watch_ last night," Dale says, eyes wide. "Rick, you need to sleep."

Rick is cut off by T-Dog, "I'll take first watch."

"I'll take second," Glenn says, and T-Dog nods in reply.

Rick concedes with a thank you.

They trickle away, moving to their tents with murmured words of goodnight.

From where she huddles beneath a blanket, Cal watches Daryl avoid the shared tents and tarps. She watches as he drifts towards a pile of hay bales, and she follows.

He's arranging the square bales. Hauling them by their twine as if they weigh nothing. He doesn't note her arrival, but she knows he is as aware of her as she has ever been of him. She watches him work, and after a moment moves to help.

Stack, cross, stack, cross.

Together they stack and arrange a small fort made of hay.

"Never took you for a farm kid," Cal murmurs as she arranges her blanket around her shoulders.

Daryl stops and glances at her, when he notes her smile he hisses. "Stop."

"You don't want to sleep in a tent?"

Daryl snorts softly.

"Ain't a cloud in the sky - it's going to be cold as hell tonight," he replies.

She stares at him.

"S'warmer in there," he gestures to the hay fort.

Cal makes a sound at the back of her throat, and watches him. He in turn watches her, biting his lip in consideration. She can never fathom his thoughts – he hides them behind his quiet, just as she imagines she does her own.

Daryl shrugs and turns away, gesturing with a nod of his chin, "c'mon."

Cal hesitates.

"Pardon?"

"You heard me," he says as he bends down and crawls into the space of his fort.

She blinks.

She bends down and peers through the opening. He's laying on his back, an arm behind his head, and the other thrown over his eyes.

"There isn't a lot of room," she says, eyeballing the low ceiling of their cross-stacked hay bales, and the narrow space of the walls.

"Your choice," he shrugs.

She narrows her eyes at him, and his apparent nonchalance. Finally, she crawls in.

He lifts his arm up enough to watch her with one half opened eye, lips tight as she moves to settle beside him.

The space between them is cold.

For a long moment she stares at him, and he at her. There is a silence that stretches on; the quiet they share becoming _theirs._

It is familiar and easy. It makes her feel safe.

She doesn't know the last time she felt as safe as she does when she is with Daryl – a wayward and startling thought that she abruptly pushes aside.

Slowly, tentatively, she curls on her side, and watches him - she doesn't look away.

"Are you cold?" She asks.

He continues to stare at her, but doesn't reply.

She sighs and arranges the blanket about herself, moving in turn to drape it across him. He stiffens.

"You said it was going to be cold," she whispers.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat and shuts his eyes, but his denial doesn't matter - the blanket still drapes across him. He tenses.

She stares at him, unmoving, at his jaw stiff with his tension. The air between them slowly warms. A soft line on the underside of his jaw stills her breath.

It is the white of an aged scar.

"What?" His voice rouses her, and she realizes he's looking at her with narrowed eyes, brow knitted in consternation. "What're you looking at?"

She swallows, hesitant to ask him about the scar. Instead, she changes the subject, "Do you think we're going to find somewhere to stay?"

Daryl closes his eyes and shrugs a shoulder. "What do you care? Weren't you set on leaving at some point?"

Cal stares at him - at the tension on his jaw, the white of his tight lips.

She _had_ been set on leaving before everything went to hell, but she can't deny that that has changed – she can't even recall exactly _when_ it had changed. Maybe, just maybe, when he had offered her his hand and said _best keep an eye on you._

"I was," she whispers.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat.

"Something changed," she shrugs.

Daryl props a leg up, the blanket sliding off of him. His eyes flutter open, and he stares at the low ceiling. A piece of straw, strangely absent before, juts past his lips.

"You staying for good?"

Cal considers him. He is still – as if he is afraid she might bolt.

"Yeah," she says, finally.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat, pinches the edge of the blanket, and tugs it over himself.

"Good."

* * *

The next morning they are slow to move on. Daryl is gone from the fort, having slipped out at some point during the greyness of dawn.

The rest mill around, huddling beneath their coats and blankets. There is a chill in the air that sends ripples down their spines, and they are made to burn a small fire in the middle of the barn. T-Dog shakes his head at burning anything near hay, and promptly delegates himself to take watch _._

"Yeah, _watch you all burn_ _to death_ _,"_ he mutters to himself as he leaves.

The rest huddle around the fire eating breakfast.

Cal squats beside the fire, a small can of tuna discarded at her feet. Her fingers tug and pull at the fabric of her jacket, the still-healing skin of her wounded arm itching under the layers. There had no complications since those first few days, the fear that had come with the incident having dissolved right before they had fled Wiltshire Estates.

"Mom," Carl's voice is soft and insistent. "I'm still hungry."

Lori makes a soft sound and drags him closer, offering him the remains of her own can of tuna.

They had started rationing their meals, and it was starting to show in the dark circles under their eyes, and the hollow of their cheeks.

"Cal," Rick's voice shocks her from her stupor, and she glances up to see him standing at the access door of the barn, the light of day casts him in shadow. He suddenly disappears back outside, and she rises from her spot to follow. No one seems to notice or care, they are too involved in their cans of food. Only Lori's eyes follow her from the barn.

It is noticeably chillier outside, and she tucks her hands into her pockets and tucks her shoulders up around her ears. She makes her way towards Rick leaning against the nose of the SUV.

"Daryl's huntin'," he says as she draws up beside him. There is a map laid out across the SUV's nose, the familiar lines and arrows and crosses already crowding a crowded map.

She makes a soft noise at the back of her throat, and Rick glances are her – she almost sees amusement in his eyes. _Almost._

"I figure we'd take advantage of the weather and our situation here. I figure we'll let the others rest up. I want to head to this town -" he points at a small blob on the map, nearly twenty miles away. "Hershel tells me it has a discount store."

"I'll come," she whispers, eyeing the distance between it and other towns. It was promising.

He considers her for a moment before he nods his appreciation. "We'll head out right away."

"Rick," she says as he turns to gather the map. "We might run into... others."

She doesn't need to say the other dangers. They were simple truths of their new existence.

_The store could be empty. It could be overrun. It could have burnt down. It could be a hideout. It could be a trap._

The only one that matters is the one she gives voice.

_Others._

Rick looks at her for a long moment.

"We'll deal with it," he concedes.

It is all he says.


	21. Chapter 21

They leave shortly thereafter. Rick explains to Hershel where they're going. The two men nod and talk quietly enough that the others stutter in the monotony of their morning; curious glances and mumbled questions come from everyone.

" _Where are they going?"_

" _Just the two of them?"_

" _Is that such a good idea?"_

Dale approaches Cal as she waits by the SUV, her stillness infinite even as he draws up beside her. She casts him a glance, but remains unmoving.

"Does Daryl know you're going?"

"No."

Dale's rifle is slung over his shoulder; he fingers the strap uneasily. "Be careful," he whispers, his eyes glued on Rick.

Cal's lips tighten, her eyes falling to the rifle she knows he'll never use in his own defense. "You too," she leaves Dale at the foot of the barn and trails behind Rick.

Dale watches as they drive away.

* * *

The community is small and dead. Rows of trailers lead to rows of houses that lead to death. A large patch of the community is charred and burned – only the skeletons of buildings remain, crumbling to ash with every breath of wind.

They find a black crater filled with soot and twisted metal. Rick parks the SUV at the edge of catastrophic ring; the tires sinking into a foot of soggy ash.

"A gas station was supposed to be here," Cal mutters, toeing a charred piece of metal.

"Well, now we know what happened to the rest of the town," Rick eyes the edge of the ring, the force of an explosion having painted the concrete with blackness. "Station exploded. Fire must have jumped from house to house."

Cal follows his line of sight down the row of burned and collapsed buildings.

Everything is dead.

* * *

They find the old discount store – Save Lots – or rather, what is left of it.

The front half the building is simply gone, eaten up by the fire. What remains is shadowed and burnt.

Rick parks the SUV beside the only other vehicle in the parking lot – a sedan enrobed in grey.

Cal drags her fingers across the car, grimacing at the thickness of the ash on her fingertips.

"Must have rained," Rick says, watching as Cal wipes the thick paste on her pant leg. She grimaces down at the ground and at the grey paste clinging to her boots.

Rick approaches the store, his feet silent across the ash-mud. He stands at the entrance of the store, looking into the inky blackness with a tense jaw. Cal draws up beside him, her mouth thick with the taste of fire.

She feels awe.

The glass of the front windows had long since shattered, leaving metal framing that grimly resembles the ribcage of a rotting giant. She reaches out, her fingertips coming away covered in black soot.

Something crunches. She reels back, knife already unsheathed.

Rick steps through the window, boots kicking up ash and debris. He looks around, his awe careful, his caution fluctuating. He slowly unsheathes his own knife, casts her one last look, and moves further into the store.

Cal glances over her shoulder at the empty parking lot, at their footprints, at the grisly heart of the burned store. She follows, stepping lightly through the shattered frame of a door, and across the dry ash and crumbling debris scattered across the ground.

They wind their way deeper and deeper into the shop. Their path is labyrinthine – it is determined by where the roof has collapsed or where it has not. There are shelves that have collapsed against one another, and shelves that have not. A mangled pile of black and twisted metal is all that remains of shopping carts.

They almost miss a set of doors - as charred and fire touched as the rest of the building, they blend in with the ash soaked walls and the sooty debris.

They stand in silence and regard the doors with a grim hope.

Together they pull pieces of fallen debris from the door, huffing and heaving and holding their sleeves to their faces as ash and dust spring into the air.

Rick pushes open the door.

It happens quickly. The door suddenly slams back towards them, and something dark and twisted collapses onto the ashy ground between them. It writhes on the ground, sightless eyes staring up at them, and teeth – as white as snow against the charred flesh of its burnt face – click at them in longing. It lets out a breathy wheeze, ash scattering away from the open crater that is its throat.

Rick crushes its skull with his heel. The smell of smoke and cooked meat rises around them.

Cal swallows a sudden thickness in her throat.

"Come on," Rick draws a flashlight from his jacket and clicks it on. Cal follows suit, her penlight much smaller.

She doesn't say anything as she opens the door and slides into the heart of a dark and smokey would-be grave. As the door creaks shut behind them, they are met with a deep and inscrutable depth - the few undefinable shapes that are before them melt away into shadow, lending a vastness to the darkness.

She presses herself against the door at her back and waits. There is no sound but their quiet and short breaths. She reaches for the penlight tucked into her jacket, and quickly sweeps the room, revealing a small ash-covered albeit relatively unscathed warehouse.

Rick sweeps his flashlight across the floor, along the walls. He edges forward with careful steps, light sweeping the warehouse for any sign of movement. Cal follows until they near the loading bay door, a couple of cling-wrapped pallets squatting forlornly under a blanket of ash. Rick reaches out and rubs a handful of the grey soot away.

"Cal."

"Is that...?"

"Yeah."

Rick drags his knife down the face of the cling-wrap, grimacing as clouds of ashy billow into the air. They pull and grab and grasp at the wrap, ignoring the painful squeal of it as they rip it off the pallet of goods.

Cal holds her sleeve to her nose as Rick rips open one of the boxes, marveling at the can.

_Mystery Meat. Chilli. Beans._

* * *

She uses her fingers, not particularly caring to stick her knife in her mouth – not after where its been. She glances at Rick as he picks at his own can, one hand on the wheel and one shoving fingerfuls of _something_ into his mouth.

She glances in the rear-view mirror, watching as the skeleton of the Save-lots and the burnt out community disappears around a bend.

Rick tosses his can out his window and sucks his fingers clean.

"Now we just need a home," he says.

Cal glances at him, noting the hope in his eyes.

"It's a big world," she says around a mouthful of squishy faux-meat.

"Yeah. There's got to be a place left for us in it."

Rick glances at the rear-view mirror, his expression turning thoughtful."We'll head back tomorrow, bring back more. We're going to need it for the winter."

She makes a sound at the back of her throat: her agreement.

They descend into quiet.

* * *

The twine is fine in his hands. He folds it over in his fingers, tucking it into itself. The loop is visible and conspicuous, made of the bright orange twine used to bale hay, but he doesn't care – he has nothing else to use.

Daryl gives an experimental tug on the loop – it slides closed around his fingers. He chews as he resets it, tying the loose end to a nearby sapling that groans miserably as it bends. He tucks the loop across the small game-trail, using the dead, thick grasses to keep it upright.

He leaves.

There was little else to do but wait. He had set a series of snares along several game-trails, and there was nothing he could do to rush their purpose. The small, sparsely wooded area that backed the farm had yielded nothing but cold game trails.

Even the trees had been silent – not a squirrel or bird in sight.

He breaks the treeline, eyeing the hay barn squatting across the field. They had hidden the vehicles on the far side of the barn, tucked between machinery, out of sight of the road. He can see that the SUV is gone.

He chews at his lip.

When he draws up to the barn T-Dog greets him from under an eave, bat in one hand and a handgun in the other.

Daryl glances at the empty spot where the SUV had been. T-Dog follows his gaze.

"Rick and Cal," he explains. "They went off to some _discount store_ or somethin'."

"Jus' the two of 'em?" Daryl asks.

T-Dog nods.

Daryl frowns.

Maggie and Glenn leave the barn.

"We're going to the house," Glenn nods across the fields towards a small house tucked down near the road.

He enters the barn through the small side door, ducking past Hershel and a glowering Lori. Her hands, he notes, are twitching and tugging and pulling at her sleeves – he briefly considers the fact she might want to strangle someone.

He heads towards the small hay fort he had shared with Cal. Even in the dim light of the fort he can make out the lumpy shape of the blanket. He pauses and bites at the inside of his lip, considering it.

"Cal went with Rick," Dale appears out of nowhere, a greasy rag in one hand and a piece of an engine in the other. He wipes the grime from it, and watches Daryl with careful eyes.

Daryl looks away from the blanket to glare at the old man in his stupid bucket hat. "Any idea when they gonna be back?"

"I don't know."

The two men stand there - Dale prying as he was want to do, and Daryl staring at him, waiting for him to leave. He'd been under Dale's scrutiny on occasion, but there is something unsettling about the older man's sudden intensity. He feels like he's about to be grandfather'd - something he has absolutely _zero_ interest in.

Daryl skirts around Dale, but the older man stops him with a greasy hand.

"You and Cal are close."

Daryl blinks at him, his hackles rise. What was the old man playing at?

"And?" Daryl growls.

Dale just considers him quietly before he casts a quick glance at the fort and the discarded blanket. He shrugs, and looks down at the piece of machinery. He thumbs it, thoughtful. "Sometimes when you're close with someone... they might feel differently about you than you might feel about them."

Daryl considers the possibility that Dale might not be talking about him and Cal at all.

"Cal and I are _friends_."

"How does she feel?"

Daryl growls, "I wouldn't know. We aren't _that_ close."

"Pushing people away isn't how we're going to survive this."

Daryl flashes his teeth at Dale. "I ain't pushing her anywhere."

Dale's eyebrows droop, his face is the portrait of pleading. "Daryl... don't make the same mistake I did."

_Andrea._

The name hangs unspoken between them. He feels a moment of pity at Dale's concession - and then a stubborn bitterness rises in his chest. What right did Dale have trying to interfere in his life?

Daryl glowers, his eyes darkening. "Mind your own damn business." He moves to brush past the old man, but it stilled by a hand on his shoulder.

Dale doesn't meet his eye. He stares forlornly into the grey light of the barn, eyes lost in a sea of memories and would-be futures. He whispers, his voice filled with remorse. "This is about seeing something worthwhile and taking it before its too late."

"I ain't listening to this shit," Daryl grouses, shrugs off Dale's hand, and shoulders his way out of the barn.

* * *

Daryl isn't there. Maggie and Glenn are gone.

Rick and Cal move the boxes of food into the barn. They work around the others and their stunned joy.

Hershel grips Rick by the shoulder, hope gleaming in his eyes.

"Thank you," he says.

"Now we just need a home," Rick murmurs.

Hershel nods. "It'll come in due time."

* * *

She finds him in the fields, walking through the tall grasses towards a treeline in the distance. She jogs after him, her footsteps swallowed by the wind that has started whistling in from the east. As she draws near she notes the tension lining his shoulders – sharp, immovable lines.

Daryl is the quiet of a storm roiling in the distance. A swathe of grey clouds tumbling over and over again as a viciousness builds in its belly.

He doesn't acknowledge her as she draws up beside him; she doesn't say anything by way of greeting. Cal tucks her hands into the pockets of her coat, and stares ahead at the treeline looming in the distance.

They walk across the field in silence, the wind buffeting against their backs.

Daryl leads her into the treeline, through the dead and crumbling underbrush. His footsteps are careful, soundless even among the ashy remains of deadfall and leaves. He searches the grey woods until his eyes alight upon a rabbit hanging dead from a string.

A snare, she realizes.

Daryl stoops down to release the dead animal and tie it to his belt. He resets the snare with practiced hands, his intensity stilling Cal's concern.

Without a glance he stands and moves further along the game trail. Cal follows in silence.

He leads her to another snare, and then another. Each one yields a scrawny rabbit, eyes wide and vapid; he ties them to his hip, his hands unshy and even brusque in the handling of the bodies.

He stands stiffly and moves off down the trail. She follows.

They are passing through a narrow section of trees when he turns on her, his eyes narrowed and jaw tight.

"Why're you followin' me?" he growls.

She stares back in silence, her eyes narrowing steadily. She has seen him upset with the others, but he has never turned his true ire on her. She steels herself against him, reminding herself that she had known he was stormy weather when she initially followed him. She could have left him to be, but she hadn't.

She had dared the storm, and it was the storm who she now endured.

Cal watches him carefully, the tension roiling off of him reminiscent of Merle. The rational part of her understands that Daryl wouldn't hurt her, but the instinctual side – the side that had felt gun barrels pressed to her temple, or a knife digging into her side, or a man smashing her head against concrete for _more time –_ coils and prepares to flee.

She takes a breath to stop the stiffness from setting into her bones. She wills away the moment of irrational fear. This is Daryl, she reminds herself.

"Just keeping an eye on you."

The tension suddenly rolls off of him. It falls away. It dies. The tempest flatlines.

Daryl visibly deflates, and the fight that was in him becomes nothing more than a half hearted word stumbling through his lips. "I don't need you to _keep an eye on me_ ," he grunts.

Cal tucks her hands into her pockets and watches him. Her passivity had disturbed him – he had sought a fight, readied himself for conflict, and found her wanting – which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. There are moments from her past that remind her that sometimes – _sometimes -_ anger is best met with kindness and not aggression.

She rocks on her feet, and shrugs. "I'm not leaving."

He stares at her, working the inside of his lip between his teeth as he often did. A habit she had quickly come to associate with his moments of consideration and contemplation.

He seems to make up his mind – he grunts and turns away from her with a growl. "Fine."

As they start the walk back to the barn he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. His eyes are dark but he is without tension or aggravation. His is a forced disquiet; more show than genuine discomfort.

Cal cants a sly look at him.

"Damn tick," Daryl growls.

Cal lets him see the faintest smile.

* * *

Daryl takes up watch on their arrival home, and leaves with his handle of rabbits to clean and cook them behind the barn. She doesn't ask if she might sit with him - she has a feeling he wants to be alone.

Dinner is a quiet affair. The group hovering over cans of chili and mystery meats and watery fruits. Cal sits at the small fire, staring contentedly into the dimness of the barn, reminiscing on a warmth as familiar as the one in her belly. She can't remember the last time her stomach was full enough to lull her into dreams. Despite only knowing the people around her for a few short weeks, she feels safe and warm.

"This is the life," T-Dog croons from where he stretches out beside the fire.

"What is?" Dale asks. "Eating mystery meat?"

"Eating."

"We weren't exactly starving before all this."

T-Dog shoots Dale a _look._ "We almost were. Two meals a day ain't cuttin' it for me, man."

"What will you do when we run out of food?" Dale asks.

"I don't know. How fast can you run?"

Dale nearly chokes.

"Yeah, you're right. You might be a bit gamey."

Dale scowls. "Now listen here -"

"I just wish we had some nice spices," Carol mutters, choosing to ignore the two men quietly arguing about cannibalism.

"I'll keep an eye out," Cal offers, earning herself a quiet smile.

The warmth of the fire washes over them, and one by one the others drift away. Cal is left alone the fire, watching the last remnants of a log burn itself into smoldering embers. Rick drifts past, a grim shape moving at the edge of the fire, to take up watch. Cal turns back to the fire, to the abandoned spots of the others, to the fort sitting quietly in the shadows of the barn - she can feel the fort beckoning to her, but another part of her begs her to wait for Daryl and see if he still desires her company.

As if her very thoughts summoned him, Daryl materializes across the fire. He squats and tugs at a rabbit bone sticking out from between his teeth.

"How was the rabbit?" She asks.

He shrugs, "skinny."

She glances at the fort they had shared the night before, and back to Daryl. His surliness from earlier in the day no longer looms over him like a rain cloud, replaced instead by a quiet that she is familiar with. Despite wanting to know the root of his mood she hadn't pushed him on their way home, knowing he would be non-receptive to her prying.

Cal looks down at where he holds her wrist and back again. "You okay?"

Daryl shrugs. "Yeah."

"You know you can talk to me right?"

He makes a sound at the back of his throat, and flicks the rabbit bone into the fire. "Ain't nothing to talk about."

She studies him, brow knitting in concern.

He huffs softly, sounding more defeated than antagonized. "I don't like it when people pry into my business."

"I'm not here to pry."

"Ain't about you," he mutters. "Dale don't know when to quit."

Cal looks across the fire to where Dale had retreated to his sleeping bag. The old man's hat is propped over his eyes, but she has a sense he isn't asleep. He hasn't slept well since the farmhouse. There was something the older man had lost back there, but she wasn't about to go poking and prodding in his affairs as he often did in others'.

They sit quietly, watching one another from across the fire. Daryl chews on the inside of his lip as he considers her. A moment passes in which he seemingly makes up his mind about something. He stands and approaches her, extending his hand for her to take – when she does he lifts her to her feet.

His fingers are warm on her hand. He doesn't let go. Her arm erupts in goose flesh, an electric chill trailing from his hand in her own, along her arm to her spine. Despite the heat of the fire, she shivers.

Daryl's fingers tighten.

"You cold?" He asks, bemused as he casts a glance at her arm and the fire sitting only feet away.

Cal stares at him. She can't look away. "I guess so," she whispers.

He jerks his head towards the fort. "C'mon. I'm tired."

He doesn't say anything after that. Neither does she.

* * *

 


	22. Chapter 22

She wakes to warmth.

A dream of a man driving her relentlessly into concrete dissolves, and she wakes slowly to find herself pressed to Daryl, the heat of his body beneath their shared blanket like fire.

Cal is curled against his back, one hand clutched almost reverently into the fabric of his shirt. She stares at him - at the soft rise and fall of his breath, at the quiet of his body. Wherein day to day he carries a feral tension, he now resides in the gentleness of a deep and encompassing sleep.

She doesn't move, entranced by his stillness.

However, his peace does not last long. As if a spell has been unwound, his muscles coil with tension, his breath becoming the imperfect concert of wakefulness.

He stiffens when he realizes her closeness.

He glances over his shoulder, brow knitted as he takes in Cal's careful expression. Still weighed down by a deep and restful sleep, Cal takes a moment longer to unwind her hand from his shirt and pull away, the blanket slipping from around her shoulders.

The chill of the night descends. She hisses at the sudden cold.

Daryl watches her, brow knitted.

Cal hovers at the edge of reach, blinking away a sleep she has not felt in months. _Safe,_ she realizes, her sleep had felt safe. As foreign and strange as his warmth had felt - but welcome all the same.

For a long moment they consider one another, both still blinking at the remnants of a deep sleep. Cal is still with the fear of having intruded into his space – of having gotten too close. Daryl is frozen with the indecision of allowing her this closeness – of allowing her closer still.

Cal draws in a rattling, almost fearful breath.

Daryl huffs, lifting the blanket at his back.

"Well, c'mon."

Tentatively, quietly, she slides under the blanket and curls against his back.

* * *

Daryl blinks awake.

A dream of Merle fades, already falling through his fingers like sand. He pushes it away – he's already mourned his brother, he has no use for grief.

Cal is pressed to his back, fingers still coiled in the shirt of his lower back. Her breath is a soft patch of warmth between his shoulder blades, her face pressed against him in sleep more desperately than he could ever imagine her in waking. Cal is a careful woman, though he isn't sure if her care is for her own sake or his.

He doesn't move for what feels like hours, until the pre-dawn light softens the hard edges of shadow. He's staring at the wall when a movement at the entrance of the fort draws his attention – Rick kneels down.

"Cal?"

"She's sleepin'," Daryl mutters.

"I wanted to head into town and pick up the rest of the supplies," Rick explains, his eyes on Cal wrapped protectively against Daryl's back.

Daryl chews on his lip, glances over his shoulder at the woman still pressed against him. She is still deeply asleep.

"Let 'er sleep. I'll come with you," Daryl rasps.

* * *

Rick is relaxed behind the wheel, as if the driver's seat is a throne he has not enjoyed in decades. His hands hang over the wheel as he reclines in his seat. He grins, a devilish mirth in his eyes.

"What?" Daryl narrows his eyes at him. Rick was not a man to smile idly.

"Nothing. Just thinkin' 'bout you and Cal."

"What about me an' Cal?"

"Jus'... You two."

Daryl grimaces and looks out the window. "We're jus' keepin' an eye on each other."

"Good."

* * *

The hay fort is cool with his absence.

Cal doesn't know how long she lies in the stillness of the morning, only that she listens to the silence of sleep slowly break – she hears the rustles and creaks as the others wake around her, she hears soft murmurs turn to soft voices.

Loathe to leave the warmth of her sleep behind, Cal shuffles out of the fort with the blanket tucked around her. She joins the others where they sit around the fire, sipping on weak coffee and chewing carefully on warmed beans. She looks around for someone, frowning only when she realizes his absence.

"Daryl went with Rick," Maggie offers. "They left just before dawn."

Still foggy from her over-long sleep, Cal blinks.

"To clean out what's left of the store," Maggie clarifies.

"Oh."

"They'll be back before noon."

Cal nods.

She sits near the fire and arranges herself beneath the blanket. A can of watery coffee and a can of watery instant oatmeal are passed to her. She eats slowly, grimacing whenever she takes a sip of the coffee, unused to its flavour.

"It's instant," T-Dog clarifies from her left. "Which is only _part_ of the reason it tastes like shit. Dale made it."

"I heard that," Dale's disembodied voice calls out.

A sly grin stretches across T-Dog's face. "Good."

* * *

After breakfast she decides to make herself useful.

"What are you doing with that?"

The pointed question gives her a moment of pause; Cal looks up to find Carl staring at her, leaning over the roof of the hay fort, wide eyed and brimming with curiousity. He stares at the map laid across her knees.

"Isn't that Glenn's map?" Carl asks, crawling down from the hay fort to take a seat beside her.

Cal looks back at the map, at the red and black illustrations detailing the path of several herds they had _nearly_ crossed paths with. She smooths her hands over the paper, fingers sliding towards a small area before she taps it crossly.

"That doesn't look like anywhere," he notes a near empty section of map, surrounded by nothing but lame green and lines.

"It's the house down the road."

Carl glances at her, unsure. "What's there?"

"Hopefully something worth bringing back."

* * *

It takes twenty minutes to walk east, the length of the field and through a border of trees, to a fenceline. She stands at the wire, staring across a field of dead, folded grasses towards a house backed into a heavy treeline.

She ducks under the wire and makes for the house, hand idle on the hilt of her knife. The home reminds her of Betty and Graham's house – and of a time when a mad man had been her only companion in the entirety of the world.

The house itself sighs when she opens the door, breathing softly of neglect. She stands in the doorway for a long moment, listening to the silence, beholding a kingdom long dead.

She shuts the door behind her and draws her knife, tapping it against the wall. The sound echoes through the house, but there is no rattling groan in reply, no whispered fear of the living – only the silence remains, at once inviting and haunting.

Slowly, rhythmically, she searches the house, moving from room to room with quiet steps and searching eyes. Her fingers ghost over dusty ornaments, her hands tuck picture frames face down – she admires the immaterial, but turns away from the sentiment of smiling photographs and grinning families. Their presence tells her enough to know the family that lived here was gone – dead or undead or pushed into madness.

The door to the backyard, open, the threshold dusted and muddied from weather, causes her to pause – and there she finds them. The family.

She sighs.

_Dead then - or rather, once undead and made dead a second a time._

They had died as walkers, still dressed in their pajamas, their black blood long since dried to syrup. They had been made dead-again a month at most. Their heads _sliced_ in half by something beyond sharp – a machete maybe, or a sword.

Cal shuts the door, sealing herself inside.

She knows before she opens the first drawer that anything and everything of use is gone. Whomever had samurai'd the walker family had undoubtedly drawn them from the house, killed them, and looted the place. Sure enough, the drawers are filled with useless knick-knacks - even the duct tape is gone. The only thing she finds is a small assortment of seeds tucked atop the fridge, bound together by an elastic.

Cal turns to look over her shoulder.

"You can come out now," she says evenly, tucking the seeds into her pocket.

Carl rounds the corner, eyebrows drawn tight. "How'd you know I was here?"

She turns back to the kitchen, drawing the next cupboard open. "You smell."

Carl gapes at her, indignant. "I do not-"

"Could have fooled me," she shrugs.

Carl scowls.

"Check under there," she waves her hand flippantly.

He approaches the section of cupboards she indicates, sighing indignantly as young teens are often want to do. After checking a few cupboards and drawers, Carl glances at Cal running her fingers over the edge of carving knives.

"Your mom know you're here?" Cal asks without looking up.

Carl lies. "Yeah."

"Sure," Cal narrows her eyes at him. "Well... You're here now. We need to check the rest of the house."

They work silently for several minutes, until Carl shoves a can of dog food back into its place with a disgusted grunt.

Cal glances at him sharply.

"There's nothing here," he bemoans.

"No," she says, jerking her chin towards the can of dog food he had replaced."That's a meal to a starving man."

Carl eyes the can warily.

She doesn't offer him an argument. "Come on. We have to check upstairs too."

They do.

Carl sticks close to her, an awareness to him that lends a sad truth to the reality of their lives – despite his youth, he has already witnessed unspeakable violence. His steps echo her own, soft and careful; she feels no trepidation with him at her back, but an understanding that he too is a survivor.

The rooms upstairs prove empty. Cal leaves Carl poking through a box of old comic books in a room filled with boxes. She winds her way through the rooms, stepping carefully across discarded laundry, wayward shoes, forgotten stacks of books. She doesn't touch anything, instead her eyes drag across what has been left behind, searching – she only digs into closets, tugging and pulling and digging her way to the back.

"What are you looking for?" Carl asks, a handful of comics tucked under his arm.

Cal glances over her shoulder at the boy, reaching further and further into the recesses of the closet with prying hands. "People tuck weird shit in the back of their closet."

"Weird shit?"

"Stuff," she corrects. "Weird stuff."

Carl rolls his eyes.

"Hey," she growls, tugging out a cardboard box. "Don't roll your eyes at me."

He flushes and looks down, his eyes drawn to the box Cal pulls free of the overflowing closet. "What's that?"

Cal blinks and opens it, staring down at an amalgamation of knick-knacks and sentimental items. She pulls out a cigar cutter, snips it between her fingers, and tosses it over her shoulder – it cracks against the floor, deafening in the near-silence of the house.

"Don't stick your finger in that; it is not a magic trick," she mumbles. The cigar cutter clatters against the ground a second time.

She sifts through the box, tossing items of no use over her shoulder and setting others aside. A handsome hunting knife, a silk scarf, a half-used drum of lip balm creates a small pile.

She's prying open a tin can of hair pomade – only to confirm it is, in fact, a can of hair pomade and not some hidden treasure –, when Carl sets back from a drawer overflowing with socks and underpants.

"Look!"

In his hands, a cylinder – black and cool. It smells like gun oil.

Cal stares at it in disbelief, entirely surprised – and somewhat offended – by the unoriginality of its hiding place.

* * *

They walk back to the farm carrying a sheet between them – it's filled with odds and ends, items that the looter had overlooked. Carl doesn't complain about the weight, something which Cal is grateful for. The boy has a look of stubborn determination – it reminds her of his father.

"Can I come with you tomorrow?"

"Are you asking?"

Carl blushes and looks away.

"Does Rick let you go on runs?"

"He did," Carl offers, hopeful.

Cal glances at him. "Oh really?"

"Yeah. Once."

"How'd that go?"

"Okay, I guess," Carl shrugs. "I saw a deer."

Cal makes a sound – it is almost a laugh. "Your dad told me it ended a bit differently than that."

By the time they walk the length of the field, Lori has moved to greet them. She takes the end of the sheet Carl holds, pushing him towards the barn with a stern look and a quiet word. He leaves with a single backwards glance. Cal offers him a tight smile – something more akin to a grimace –, she can feel Lori's eyes on her.

The two women stand in silence until the boy is gone, and Lori finally turns her hawk-like gaze on Cal.

"I appreciate what you're doin'," she nods towards the items between them. "But I'd appreciate it more if you left my son out of it."

There are a thousand words she wants to say, but only one slips past her tight-lipped smile.

"Sure."

They return to the barn together, the sheet straining between them. Carl watches them from the hayloft as the two women approach Carol and Maggie, depositing the bundle of items near the fire. Lori quickly excuses herself to find Carl, hurrying offer calling his name.

Cal casts the boy in the hayloft a quick glance and a wink.

"Where'd you find all of it?" Carol asks, eyeing the strange ensemble of items with an almost-reverence.

"Not a whole lot," Cal corrects.

"No, no, this is just what we need. Simple things," Carol reassures her.

"Is that -?" Maggie points at the dog-eared cover of a novel: a bare-chested man bent low over the breasts of a woman.

Carol glances at her, a coy smile tugging at her lips. "It's a Harlequin romance," she murmurs, dragging the book into her lap. "It'll be great for kindling."

Cal doesn't say anything when Carol tucks the book into her jacket pocket.

* * *

A long time ago he woke up to a shattered hand – something Annette hadn't pitied him for. He had broken it while drinking, from some escapade he couldn't remember the next morning let alone forty years later. The only thing the broken hand was ever good for was telling him when the weather was going to turn south – it would pulse and ache, a soft drumming that made him quiet and somber.

Annette hadn't allowed him to be surly about his own folly.

"You best not impose the consequence of your own stupidity on us, Hershel Greene. I will not allow it," she had said, yielding only enough to tuck a few pills and a glass of water in his not-aching hand.

That had been the only kindness she had afforded him. Annette had no patience for him, his alcohol, or the product of his alcoholism.

The familiar ache of his hand is what rouses these thoughts now - of Annette. He fingers the pocket watch tucked into his coat; he tries to shake the stiffness out of his right hand. There isn't enough pain medication to afford him relief, and so he commiserates in silence – as Annette would tell him to do.

"You too?" Dale asks, his dark eyes brimming from beneath his bucket hat. "Dislocated my elbow back when I was twenty – I get a twinge every time the weather goes south."

Hershel nods. "I broke it – years ago."

"Maybe they'll find some Tylenol," Dale muses.

Hershel doesn't say anything.

For a long moment the two men stand in silence. Hershel stares down at the accumulated junk inherent in all farms, tucked beneath an open sided garage.

"What're you thinking?" Dale asks.

Hershel blinks and glances at the other man. He looks back at his hand, aching and stiff in the cold.

"The weather is going to turn," Hershel offers. "I think we best prepare for an extended stay."

"What about the house?" Dale asks, glancing across the field towards the farm's quaint little house.

Hershel shakes his head. "Maggie and Glenn checked it yesterday. The family died in there."

Dale nods and eyes the pile of metal, rolled chicken wire, stacks of wood both rotted and new. "Well," he says, rubbing at his chin. "We can reinforce some of the barn's weaker points instead -"

"How about the house across the field?"

Both men startle. Cal stands behind them. She stares, unblinking, from beneath her cap.

"What house?" Hershel asks.

Cal glances over her shoulder – the browned field stretches on and on until they can see nothing but the sky. "There's a house over there," she turns back to them. "The family died outside. It's dusty but okay. Back from the road. Tucked in the trees."

Dale glances at Hershel, Hershel holds Cal's eye. "We'll have to talk to Rick."

She nods, and as an afterthought tugs something from her pocket.

"I found these." She passes a small handful of packets to Hershel. "Figure you'd keep them safe," she whispers, and then she's gone – she leaves as quietly as she had arrived.

Dale glances at Hershel.

"What is it?"

Hershel blinks, and looks after Cal's retreating back. Joy steals into his eyes.

"She found seeds."

* * *

Rick and Daryl return just before noon, the SUV filled with boxes of food and items that had survived the fire. Before they can unload the boxes Lori approaches Rick, murmuring quietly to him about Carl's misadventure with Cal.

"You sure he didn't follow her?" Daryl asks, defensive – protective.

Lori turns her back to him, refusing him his voice. Daryl glowers, heaving a box of goods into his arms and shouldering past them to the barn.

Rick watches him go before he turns to his estranged wife. "I'll have a word with her."

Lori nods, eyeing him from beneath the fringe of her bangs. "Rick-"

"Rick," a voice calls out.

Hershel approaches, shadowed closely by Cal. At their interruption Lori moves away, drifting past the pair without a glance.

"Before you unload the car, hear me out. We need to move on from here, find somewhere more permanent for the winter," Hershel proposes.

"Alright." Rick glances between Hershel and Cal, "If you have a suggestion, I'm open to it."

"Maggie and Glenn checked the house down by the road – it's filled with bodies." Hershel's voice, slow and methodical, juxtaposes the content of his words.

"But... there is a house to the east," Cal interjects.

"East?" Rick turns, searching the same horizon.

"There is a farm just over the ridge," she offers. "Someone looted the place. It's dusty, but it's back from the road, tucked into some trees."

Rick considers her and Hershel. "The barn will only last us so long."

Rick nods, "then we'll move."

Hershel flexes his hand. "I'd recommend sooner than later."

"Today then."

"I'll let the others know," Hershel nods and takes his leave.

Rick turns to Cal, Lori's fear rearing in his mind. "Heard Carl went out with you today."

"Yeah," Cal doesn't deny it – but, he notices, her eyes ice over.

He can feel the familiar anxiety – a deep fear for his son growing up in a world set to ruin. His instincts tell him to shield the boy, but his rational, logical mind demands he let him grow – grow in a way to survive this new and dangerous world. He can taste the coppery bite of his own fear at the back of his throat. Not for himself, he notes, but for his son, and what he is about to say.

Rick breathes a laugh. "Good."

Cal blinks at him.

Rick nearly smiles at her surprise. "He followed you, didn't he?"

Cal stares at him long and hard – and then she shrugs.

He takes it as an affirmation for what he already knows. "'Course he did." Rick stares down at the earth, at the sky, at Cal and her careful manner. "Hope he wasn't much trouble."

"He's a good kid. Good finder," Call offers. She tugs a black cylinder from her pocket and passes it to him. The suppressor shines with an unholy light.

Rick turns it over and over in his hands – reverent. "Where'd you find this?"

"I didn't. Carl did. In the house. Tucked away in a closet."

"This could change things."

"Only if we find more."

* * *

They move that afternoon. They tuck what they can away into the trucks and drive down to the main road, from there they find the access road to their new home.

They pour from the SUV and truck, eyes wild as they scan the dark and dead forest surrounding them. They are quick to ensure the house is still secure from Cal's last visit, and the house's two outbuildings are free of threat. Everyone feels better at the idea that there will not be a repeat of Wiltshire Estates. When all is said and done, they breathe.

The first thing she notices is that the house breathes too. It sighs as if its been waiting for them, she realizes. It sighs as if it is changed. It isn't as daunting as it had been when she first approached. It isn't as reminiscent of Betty and Graham's house, or Merle and his promise of violence. It feels like the start of something – it feels like it could be their home.

_Their_ home.

Cal feels a strange sort of warmth at the idea.

They unload the vehicles, and stow items wherever they can. The lower level of the house becomes a haphazard maze of stacked boxes and leaning towers of beans.

Night comes quickly thereafter, and they arrange themselves in the living room where Dale has lit the fireplace. They poke holes in the tops of their chili cans and set them on the hearth, watching with wide eyes as they slowly heat up and burp with steam.

Cal huddles under her blanket, watching the others finish their cans of chili.

"I think tonight deserves a celebration."

Hershel opens a can of watery peaches, passing it to Carl with a gentle smile and laugh as the boy drinks the sugary syrup.

"Don't make yourself sick," Lori muses, brushing her hands through the boy's hair. He grins wildly around a mouthful of sugar, pleased with himself.

Rick smiles – his wife looks away when their eyes inadvertently meet, her smile dying.

T-Dog holds open his hands, eyes ravenous at the sight of something sweeter than nothing at all. Lori plucks the can from Carl's hands – despite his mumbled protests –, and passes it to T-Dog. The can moves from hand to hand, everyone taking a slice before passing it on. There is a quiet as they savour the sweetness.

"You ain't gonna eat any?" His voice is at her ear, his breath slides across her neck. She turns to find Daryl settling beside her.

"I was going to eat yours, actually."

Daryl scoffs.

"Where were you?" She asks.

"Claiming a bed."

"Really?"

"Gotta mark my territory."

She stares at him, a smile begging to be shared. "Sure."

A smile tugs at his lips.

"Thanks for going with Rick this morning," she murmurs.

"Ain't nothing."

"No. It is something," she repeats words she has said to him before.

It reminds him of the conversation he had had with Rick, brief as it was.

"Jus' keepin' an eye on you."

Cal smiles, tentatively, slowly. She finally looks away.

He breathes when her eyes leave him – he hardly noticed he was suffocating.

"Guys."

A voice interrupts them. Glenn is holding the can towards them, his tentative smile reaching his eyes. "We saved you both a slice."

She takes it, holding it in both hands. Daryl is watching her – not the way she covets the can of peaches, just her.

She holds it out to him. "Want one?"

He doesn't look away. "In a bit."

"Okay." She doesn't eat hers either.

They talk quietly to one another in the small room, surrounded by people, their attention so acutely trained on the other that they hardly recognize when the conversations shift and fade and people drift to bed.

In the end, it's them, only them in that small room.

"I have watch next," Cal murmurs at some point in the night. The fire has burned to embers. "After Maggie."

Daryl makes a sound.

They finally eat their peach slices, and lick the syrup off their fingers with satisfied sighs.

"My grandmother would kill me," Cal's voice nearly breaks with a laugh. The can rolls from her hand, twirling on the ground. "She grew peaches in her yard. She insisted hers were the best."

Daryl looks at her in surprise. She has never spoken of anything from before. But, despite his curiousity, he knows better than to pry.

Silence breathes around them after that.

They watch the embers burn until they crumble to ash.

"Can I stay with you?" She whispers.

Daryl knows she doesn't mean this once.

"I'll be waitin' for you," he whispers back.


	23. Chapter 23

For the first time in however many days or weeks, there is a sense of _maybe._

The house has a sense of potential, of permanency. They're far enough back from the road, hidden among the trees that there is a moment of hope that they might have found a home – a real home.

That first night they found places to sleep, claiming small sections for themselves. Mattresses and blankets were rearranged to create livable sleeping quarters to be shared. After her shift on watch – a cold and seemingly useless experience involving sitting on the roof and staring out into an unfathomable darkness – Cal had found the _room_ Daryl had claimed only through luck.

It wasn't a room so much as a closet, tucked off in the back of the house. Where the others had created beds, Daryl had created something more akin to a nest. The space was tight and cramped, but held the heat of their bodies well enough that Cal felt only the faintest threat of winter creeping past the grimy warmth of her socks.

That first night she had crept into the room, a keylight shining from where he had hung it off a nail. In the near dark she had knelt at the door, eyes wide and lips tight. She had watched him as he watched her, both of them considering the other with _something._

"C'mon," he had rasped, lifting the blanket in invitation.

Always she wanted an invitation, he realized. Always she _needed_ an invitation.

He still wasn't sure if it was for her benefit or his.

Cal had shrugged off her jacket and tugged off her boots. She had shuffled under the blankets, tucking herself behind him, fingers coiling into the shirt at the small of his back.

They had fallen asleep. Her encompassing him; him encompassed by her.

That first night had been the first time they slept with hope in their hearts, and dreamt of maybes.

And outside, for the first time in years, it began to snow.

* * *

"Snow doesn't suit Georgia."

Dale finds her on the porch, staring down at the white blanket draped across the entirety of the world. She stands at the edge of snow that had blown onto the front porch, eyeing _everything_ with distaste.

"It doesn't," Cal agrees.

Dale tugs at the strap of his rifle as he steps past her, into the snow, to stare up at the roof. "We'll need to find a new place to be on watch."

Cal steps into the snow, tracking past Dale. She stands beside the truck and SUV, eyes narrowed as she looks down the drive. She looks down at the snow, sludgy and melting – already succumbing to the mildness of a Georgian winter.

She sucks in a breath of wet air, wincing at the coolness on her teeth.

Hershel steps from the house, one hand pulsing as if to chase away an ache. "We haven't had snow in years."

Dale regards Hershel - how the other man still favours his hand despite the weather's break. Dale's elbow had ached up until the clouds heaved with snow – now it was hardly a twinge.

"I'm going out," Cal decides. The two men start. She glances at them. "I'm going down the road."

Dale thumbs his rifle. "I'll come."

She doesn't disagree.

They walk together down the gravel road, marveling at the quiet the cold has ushered in. The trees bow overhead, creaking with the unfamiliar weight of a snowfall in Georgia. Cal casts cursory glances over their shoulder, eyeing the footprints they leave in their wake.

"It'll be gone before noon," Dale offers.

She nods.

They walk further on until they reach the main road. It is there on the empty road that they encounter a walker.

It stands beside a car, snow clinging to its shoulders and head. It doesn't move, it doesn't even make a sound. It simply stands in quiet, staring sightlessly down the road.

Dale curses softly. Sometimes Cal forgets how much less of the new world Dale has seen next to the others. She glances at him, at the rifle he's already removed from his shoulder, at the trigger he itches to pull.

The walker lets out a breathy sigh. Its body creaks and cracks as it lifts its chin; its eyes, glassed over from the cold, are hungry.

It croaks miserably at them.

"Is it frozen?"

Dale starts at the voice.

Carl peers out from behind a tree.

"Carl," Cal's voice drips with warning.

The boy has the decency to look sheepish.

"Well?" He asks, eyes bright and shiny. He moves to Cal's side, fingers curled around a pistol.

"On its way to," Cal moves towards the walker, her knife already in her hand. She stands a moment out of its reach. The thing lets out a breath, its hand inching up as it snaps and cracks with the strain of the cold.

Carl is at her side in a moment. His eyes gleam with the walker's inability. "Cool."

"Carl," Dale warns. He hasn't moved any closer.

They watch the walker's fingers move, stiff and lethargic, entirely affected by the cold. It can move – but only just.

Cal slips her knife into its temple a moment later, letting the stiff body reel back. It hits the snowy concrete like a piece of frozen meat.

_Clunk._

"I don't think I've ever looked forward to winter," Dale murmurs, eyes wide as if they've discovered something positively wondrous – and perhaps they have.

* * *

It doesn't snow again.

Those first few days are punctuated by deeply cold nights, and days that warm enough to produce a walker here or there that shamble uselessly through the woods, lethargic from the chill still in their bones. They push against the barb wire fence surrounding the house, their moans rousing someone from some chore or other to slip a knife in their brain.

Days turns to weeks. The weeks bleed together until they judge not by the nights that have passed, but by the length of Carl's hair and the soft growing roundness of Lori's stomach.

Eventually the moderately cool days become colder, and the nights colder still. Their breath hangs in the air for a moment longer; their fingers and toes chilling more quickly on watch.

One night Daryl wakes to find Cal shivering against his back, her cool feet eagerly burrowing into the crook of his knees.

She doesn't say anything, only breathes a laugh of embarrassment. It drifts across his skin like fire, and he feels some strange pull in his heart.

* * *

Everyone cycles through watch.

Even Carol has stuttering moment of abject terror, clinging to the roof with desperate hands. Daryl is on the roof with her, a knowing comment from Rick – and a knowing stare from Cal – had seen that he wouldn't leave her alone.

Eventually she concedes defeat, slipping off the roof through the uppermost window of the attic, sniffing loudly, murmuring a quick _maybe next time._

Cal meets her on the landing of the attic's ladder.

Carol's hair, she notes, has a sort of look to it – like a cat after a particularly indignant encounter with the vet. Her lips are tight with fear.

"How'd it go?"

Carol offers her a timid, embarrassed smile. "Maybe next time," she whispers, and disappears into the house.

Cal stares after her, impressed that she had tried at all.

She ascends the ladder of the attic, shutting the hatch carefully behind her. She can feel the last dregs of warmth sucked from her, the open window of the attic breathing softly of the cool winter's day. Daryl regards her, eyes hooded and jaw set with tension. An aftermath, she thinks, of Carol's uncertainty.

"At least she tried?" Cal offers, gritting her teeth against the shiver racing along her spine.

Daryl makes a sound at the back of his throat.

They stand in silence, Daryl still in the cold, and Cal shivering against it.

His eyes have turned back to the grayness of the world around them. A fog had rolled in a few days previous, consuming everything less than a quarter mile away.

"Bein' on watch with this fog is useless," Daryl mumbles, biting at his lip.

"I don't mind," Cal replies.

Daryl glances at her, at the quake of her shoulders and the way she tucks her chin into the collar of her jacket against the cold – everything she does says otherwise, but he doesn't say anything about it. He tugs off a pair of gloves he'd freed from a moth ridden closet, tucking them against her chilled palm.

She stares at the gloves in surprise. "Daryl-"

He shrugs, "I expect them back tonight. I'll be waitin' up."

She takes them, turning them over in her hands as he watches in that inscrutable way of his.

"Thanks."

He nods.

* * *

She doesn't know how long she sits in the cold, staring uselessly into the mist.

Eventually Rick joins her, crawling through the window of the attic to perch beside her on the roof.

"Where'd you get those?"

Cal follows his eyes to the too-big gloves. "Daryl."

Rick nods, as if everything makes sense in the world.

Cal narrows her eyes at him, "what?"

He leans forward, draping his arms across his knees, hands loose. He considers her for a long moment, eyes light. Cal stiffens, uncomfortable with his appraisal.

He holds out a peculiar looking device, and she forgets the knowing look in his eye – the subtle tug of his lip as if he's holding back a smile.

Cal reaches out, fingers brushing the suppressor reverently. It is different, she thinks, completely and utterly diferent from the one Carl had found earlier that week. Silver and scratched – a dash of paint on the edge as if it had been something else before all this.

She glances up at Rick, eyes wide with surprise.

"But how?"

He produces a handgun from his jacket, and screws the suppressor to the muzzle.

"Daryl."

She blinks down at the gun tucked into her hand, at the red and pink scars lacing Rick's knuckles.

"Daryl?"

"His brother acutally – which is unsurprising considering what Merle was like..."

She doesn't hear anything after that except the whistling in her ears. The only thing that crosses her mind is the coppery wash in her mouth. Her tongue, she thinks, tastes like cotton or blood or both. Maybe like concrete.

"Merle?"

She hears his reply, though it sounds disjointed and garbled. Like he's is speaking, but someone is plucking random words from his mouth to create a sentence that _almost_ doesn't make sense.

"Asshole – rooftop – his arm – cauterized on a stove – stole our van – never found him."

She doesn't say anything. She stares ahead into the fog, seeing instead the rolling and feverish eyes of a man that had tried to kill her for her backpack. She can remember how tight his grip had been when he slammed her head into the road. She can feel the slick of his knife as it danced off her rib, slicing open her side.

He'd left her for dead, to be eaten alive – an unforgivable violence in her opinion.

"Daryl has changed a lot since his brother disappeared."

She blinks, reeling back into reality at the sound of Daryl's name.

And then she realizes she's alone, Rick long having ducked back into the house to leave her to her sightless watch.

She blinks, the weight of the gun in her hand both frightening and comforting in light of Rick's recent revelation. The homemade suppressor makes her think of Merle, no matter how hard she tries to push him from her thoughts. Of how he had so casually left her to die, to be consumed by whatever monsters their fight had attracted.

The suppressor is Merle's last testament.

Or maybe, she thinks, a sign of things to come.

"Well... Fuck," she hisses.

* * *

She recognizes shock for what it is – a disconnect from the world that leaves everything muted. The motions of checking the safety and stowing the gun are almost mechanical; her descent from the roof is in a daze. She passes by a smiling Maggie, unable to see the smile falter and fade and the worry take her eyes.

Maggie watches her go, but she doesn't say anything.

"Cal, you good?"

The voice is far away, strange. She blinks and looks at T-Dog, from where he sits on a couch, huddling beneath a blanket, a mug of shitty coffee in hand.

Cal stares at him for a long moment, eyes almost unseeing.

And then she starts for the door, spilling from the house and darting across the lawn with silent steps.

He's up and following her before she makes it past the treeline.

"Cal," he hisses, following her deeper into the misty wood. "Cal!"

But she doesn't slow down, her pace taking her further and further from their home – further and further into the mist. She doesn't know how long she runs, but maybe it is forever.

When the shock fades, she feels the fear – the deep and unrelenting fear that she'll never escape from him. That Merle will exist in every waking moment of her life. That she will relive his attempted murder, and her own attempt on his life, forever. And Daryl - she can't even think of Daryl without her heart screaming in her chest. He is Merle's brother. He is the brother of a man who had left her to die.

She slows long enough to duck under a barb wire fence, her feet taking her down a soft ditch and onto an old road. The sound of her own footsteps slapping against concrete make her hesitate and stop.

The sound of T-Dog crashing through the woods draws her attention, and she turns to watch him nearly tumble down the gentle incline of the roadside. Her heart freezes and her body tightens with fear – the shock is gone, replaced by the instict to flee.

"Shit," he hisses, drawing up beside her, panting and leaning over to draw in ragged breaths. "What. The. Hell?"

"Merle."

T-Dog blinks, as if he can't quite comprehend what she's saying.

"Yeah," he pants out. "Daryl's asshole brother."

She can't look at him. "No one ever said his name. Not even Daryl."

"Cal," he stands up. "What about Merle?"

She doesn't look at him when she says it. Words spill out of her mouth and she shrugs and tugs at her jacket as if uncomfortable in her own skin.

"I know him."

T-Dog shrugs, "so then you know he's an asshole."

Cal finally looks at him. She stares long and hard. "We fought," she whispers.

T-Dog stares at her, turning her words over and over. She watches the realization settle over him, dawning in his eyes like a flare.

"Oh. _Oh."_

"Yeah," she offers. "I didn't know he was Daryl's brother." _It's never come up,_ are words she doesn't need to say. The truth of Daryl and Cal and their quiet is the only thing about them that is certain.

"He tried to take my pack," Cal's voice is soft, honest. She stares down at the concrete. "I stabbed him."

"He deserved it."

Her lips pull into a thin line. Her eyes are dark with mirth.

"I like to tell myself that," she says.

_Shoot anything that looks hungry._

"You can't be beating yourself up over Merle. He's a waste of skin. Grade-A asshole."

Cal shakes her head again. "I'm not worried about that."

"Then what?"

"Daryl."

She stiffens, hands curling into fists in the gloves he had left her. She hates it – the fact that she's nervous about this entire thing, _guilty even,_ because of him. Because she owes him the truth and she's _afraid._

Afraid of everything and anything involving him – the inevitable hurt beyond hearing Merle named as his brother, at the looming prospect of Daryl's own hurt from the truth. At the fact that Merle will forever be there between them; a shadow in the quiet peace they had found.

And she's afraid of the anger – not of Daryl's, but her own.

* * *

They make their way back toward the farm along the road, stopping once or twice to do away with the near-frozen walkers in their cold-induced catatonia. They check the random cars parked along the way, unsurprised to find them already picked over by one of the others.

"How the hell did we get so far from home?" T-Dog grouses.

Cal smirks at him. "Don't look at me."

"Oh yeah, sure, Miss _Havin-your-mid-life-crisis-in-the-middle-of-the-apocalypse._ "

She shrugs.

T-Dog takes a step in front of her, eyes imploring. "You know I'm here for you, ya crazy."

Cal looks at him, at the loose threads of his coat, at the baseball bat he favours. "I know," she says. "It means a lot, T-Dog."

He grins at her, easy and relaxed and loose.

"Did Rick show you the guns?"

He shakes his head.

"Here."

Cal pulls the gun from under her jacket, and offers it to T-Dog. He turns it over in his hands, thumbing the suppressor carefully.

"Who figured this out?"

"Daryl learned it from Merle."

"Of course he did," T-Dog shakes his head.

When he hands it back to her she shies, holding up her hands. "You keep it."

"You sure?"

"I like my knife."

T-Dog laughs and Cal smiles, and together they start the long walk back toward the farm.

It isn't long before they pass a few cars, and a truck.

"This truck wasn't here last time," T-Dog says, fingers tightening on his bat. He squats and looks under the vehicle. "Body on the backside, not moving."

Cal tries the door, wincing as it opens with a creak. No alarms sound, nothing. She pokes her head in the truck, realizing that the rear bench is covered in boxes. Her heart skips. She checks the car for keys, but finds nothing.

"Find any keys on that body?" She asks over her shoulder.

"Nah."

She sighs and shuts the truck, joining him at the tailgate where he stands over the body of a young man. There is a perfect hole in his forehead.

"Looks like he was bit," T-Dog announces.

Cal glances at the gun in the dead man's hand. She empties it of shells, tucking them away in her pockets.

"We'll come back for the rest," T-Dog reassures her. "Ain't no way we're leavin' this much shit."

Around the tailgate is the body of a young man, blood staining his arm, a perfect hole in his skull.

She nods in agreement.

Reluctantly they leave the truck and its unfortunate driver behind.

They walk a bit further before the silhouette of a walker appears. It moves slowly towards them. She tugs her knife free from the sheath, and takes a step forward.

"Allow me," T-Dog says at her side, tugging the suppressed gun free from his belt.

She smiles at his enthusiasm, and tucks her knife away. Crossing her arms, she gestures to the shape moving closer, "all yours."

T-Dog flicks off the safety and holds it up, aiming down the sights carefully.

A long moment, a held breath.

His finger moves towards the trigger, ready.

"This is the only shot you'll get, nigger. Best take it."

Cal remembers the shock from earlier – coiling across her world and casting her into something akin to _nothingness._ And then there is the shock that she feels now – a fear so present and real that her muscles seize and all she knows is a primeval terror.

She can't escape him.

"How you doin' there, _doc_?"

He steps forward from the mists, lips cut into a biting smile that promises violence. His eyes, she realizes, are glued so carefully on her face that she can already feel the once-bite of his knife in her side.

T-Dog makes a strangled noise beside her. She doesn't look away from Merle, but Merle looks away from her.

"Oh, ain't _this_ somethin' special," he hisses.

And she realizes that he's got a gun in his hand and she remembers him hissing something about _a lawman and his pet nigger._

He'd lost his hand because of them.

 


	24. Chapter 24

"Ain't this something special."

The last time she had looked him in the eye he had been feverish with drugs – now all that remains is an intense focus. Where the hazy man from before had been frightening and brutal, this clear headed version of himself promises a level of violence beyond anything else.

Merle's gun hand is steady - steadier than T-Dog who trembles minutely with every breath; his jaw tight with denial at the ghost of his past. He already sweats with the weight of the gun, arms heavy.

"How you doing there, sugar-dick?" Merle doesn't take his eyes off T-Dog, but she knows he talks to her. "Miss me?"

Cal's eyes narrow. "I had hoped you were dead."

Merle grins lazily - a ruse. Nothing can deny the intensity of his gaze, the rigidity of his body. He is a loaded gun.

"You know me. Ol' Merle's fuckin hard to kill."

She doesn't reply, instead taking in the clean shaven jaw, the washed shirt, the metal contraption - shiny and new - in the stead of his missing hand.

"And _you."_ Merle's eyes are bright as he stares T-Dog down.

"We don't want no trouble, man," T-Dog's voice is calm.

Merle's eyes narrow. "No trouble," he parrots. His trigger finger itches – she can see it twitch. He could have run into people less involved in his disfigurement and there would still be trouble. He'll want to kill T-Dog, she thinks. He'll want to kill him and then find Rick - there is no doubt in her mind.

"You got a camp, Merle?" She asks, voice calm and steady despite the hammering of her heart. Anything to drag his attention away from pulling that trigger, from the revenge she knows simmers under his skin.

Merle laughs. "Me? A camp? Now ain't that a funny idea..."

"What do you want?" T-Dog breaks his silence, his eyes for Merle and Merle alone.

Cal feels a spark of terror, not for herself but for her companion.

Merle's face splits with a smile - jagged and violent. His attention wholly fixed on T-Dog.

"Well, first things first."

Merle shoots, once. The soft thunk of his own suppressed gun is the only sound Cal hears before T-Dog is screaming, screaming, screaming. His thumb is gone, shot clean off. His own gun uselessly skittering down the road.

And there is blood everywhere.

T-Dog falls to his knees, clutching his ruined hand, fingers gripping uselessly at his wrist as blood rushes from his body.

Merle spits, unphased by his own brutality or T-Dog's pain. "Remember when you left me to die on that roof? You an' Rick? Feels kind of shitty, huh?"

She grits her teeth, wanting to rush to T-Dog's side but not trusting the very real threat of Merle's hate. She's tasted his brutality, his cold ruin.

"Second: I want you to take me to where you an' yours call home. I got a bone to pick with our Sheriff friend."

Despite his injuries, the obvious shock crashing over him, T-Dog manages to look Merle in the eye. "Fuck. You."

He scoffs a laugh. "You sure you wanna be sayin' shit like that right now, boy? Huh?"

T-Dog glares, pale and sweating from pain. He says nothing.

Merle spits again and looks at Cal where she stands. His eyes cascade away, following the line of the gun where it had flown from T-Dog's shattered hand and skittered on down the road. He walks a step to put himself between the gun and Cal.

"You see my baby brother?"

Cals stares him down. Eyes blank. Mouth set in a thin line. Despite the coolness of the day, she can feel sweat bead at the base of her throat, her upper lip. She's stared down nightmares before, but never a breathing Titan of terror.

"Yes."

Merle sucks on his teeth, gnaws at the phantom of tobacco. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," she whispers.

Merle's jaw sets, eyes narrowing. "What was that?"

Cal spreads her hands. "We were separated from them a few weeks back."

The lie feels real to her. The lie feels like truth bleeding from her lips.

She doesn't lie for herself, but for him - for them. For people she's come to care for in the last few weeks, for people this monstrosity wants to maim and dehumanize and break. She thinks of Daryl and the anger he had hidden behind so vehemently in those first days, an anger that had shielded him from the others - even her. It had taken quiet moments to tuck herself into the hardened places of his heart, and softer moments still to unwind him from his hurt, but he had let her in - he had let her closer in those moments than anyone else in years.

And now - now as she faces down the shadow of his past.

She isn't about to let Merle ruin him.

"He's gone. They're all gone." _Ain't nothing left._

Merle doesn't believe her – she can tell. His eyes, icy and focused, wash over her. He's looking for a lie, he's looking for secrets. But he won't find any in her face or wardrobe – her clothes are old and dusty. Even her gloves, clean and new as they are, don't say a word.

Merle steps closer to her, holding her gaze. He stands just out of her reach, handgun trained on her.

"Let's say for a moment that I believe ya," he drawls. "Where was the last place you saw 'im?"

When she doesn't respond immediately, Merle wiggles his trigger finger at her. "Now ain't a good time to keep mum about my baby brother." He looks at T-Dog, the gun lazily following his gaze.

Cal swallows.

Merle's finger slides against the trigger, ready. T-Dog doesn't look away from him and his gun, his jaw tight as he stares down the barrel.

"We were at a farm," he breathes.

Cal looks sharply at T-Dog. His eyes meet hers, imploring and careful.

"We were overrun by a herd. Last time I seen that many... Atlanta maybe -" he laughs. It is a hollow sound laced with pain. "We lost a lot of good folks. Got separated from the rest."

Merle looks at Cal. "I'd want to see this farm for myself."

"Of course."

Merle's face cuts into a grin. "Good!" He glances down at T-Dog. "Ya hear that, my man? We're going to go on a road _trip."_

T-Dog doesn't say anything.

Merle ignores his silence and gestures to Cal. "Take that knife off your sweat little leg there, girly. Can't have you tryin' for a repeat performance."

Her lips tighten as she unhooks the rigging of her knife sheath, her eyes never leaving his. When she finishes he gestures to the ditch at the side of the road.

"Toss 'er in."

She doesn't hesitate. She tosses it into the ditch, refusing to break eye contact with Merle – something that makes his grin grow wider and wider.

"I almost forgot the size of balls you got danglin' between your legs." Merle takes a step forward and pushes his gun into the soft flesh at the bottom of Cal's ribs. " _Almost_ ," he mumbles.

Cal is still staring him in the eye. Staring and staring. She can feel her jaw aching from how tight it is. Her lips feel cold. Her back is slicked with sweat.

When he uses the knife of his metal arm to push back the brim of her hat, the edge breathing past her nose and cheek, she finally drops her eyes.

"Good girl," he steps away, gesturing to T-Dog. "Now help this nigger up. Trucks just down the road."

* * *

The truck with the dead man is Merle's ride. He tosses around words like _rendezvous_ and _mission._ Cal stops listening, instead she shoulders T-Dog's weight, supporting him as he weathers blood loss and shock.

Merle leans over the dead man, toeing his legging. "Stupid boy got himself bit, looks like. Told him not to stick his hands in dark places."

After a moment he shrugs and rifles in his pockets. "You're drivin', doc." He tosses her a set of keys.

She catches them.

T-Dog is squeezed into the back seat with the boxes of supplies. Merle takes the passenger seat, gun propped on his thigh pointing at Cal. When she settles in the driver seat she feels the reality of their situation crash over her – and the sharp bite of deja vu.

"Come on, darlin'. We ain't got a lot of daylight left."

She starts the truck, and they drive.

* * *

They had gone in circles. They had wandered for weeks, dodging herds and avoiding towns and choked roadways, and in the end the distance from the house to the Greene's farm was just under fifty miles.

It's early evening by the time Cal recognizes the area; the town Merle had abandoned her in rises up around them, eerie and dark. The sun has almost entirely set, casting the world in a murky light that sets her on edge. Her hands are tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white.

"Little walk down memory lane, huh?" Merle smiles at her, eyes flashing. "She tell you that she stuck a knife in my back?" Merle glances in the mirror at a sweating T-Dog in the back. "This bitch tries to leave me high and dry - wounded, no supplies - and then sticks a fucking knife in my shoulder."

Cal grits her teeth. She hates him.

Merle notices; there is wicked joy in his eyes. "Don't get mad, girly. Just trying to get the truth out in the open."

T-Dog huffs a laugh - a dry, brittle sound.

Merle glances over his shoulder. "Got a problem?"

"Nah, man," T-Dog slurs. "Just a cough."

Merle snorts, "uh huh."

Cal slows as they pass Hatlin's bar where Rick and Glenn had encountered Randall's people. She eyes the cars left behind, the skeletons strewn across the drive that had been picked clean. It isn't the first time she's seen the aftermath of a gunfight, but where the others had turned her stomach now she feels nothing. These people had chased her down, their intention murdering whatever empathy she might have possessed.

They drift on, passing moments from their intertwined past. Merle laughs lowly as they pass the very drive that had seen their battle.

"Want to finish what ya started, girly?"

Cal grinds her teeth.

"Best keep an eye on this one, boy," Merle growls, glancing at T-Dog over his shoulder. "She keeps secrets."

* * *

The farm is dead.

The long and winding road to the Greene's house is littered with bodies. The grass is flat where once a half thousand undead trod. The house is dusted and ruined; windows and doors shattered where hundreds of hands had pressed and pushed.

Cal stares at a dark stain where she had watched Patricia and Beth succumb to reaching hands and eager mouths.

"This place is a shithole," Merle states, standing on the porch of the Greene house. He stares out across the vast pastures that had been flattened by the herd.

"What were you expectin'?" T-Dog growls, hunching over his maimed hand at the hood of the truck.

Merle sniffs at him, and points at Cal with his knife. "I was expectin' her to be lyin'."

Cal stares at him as she plucks off her gloves, stowing them in her back pocket.

"Come on, girly. No need to be like that. You know I can't trust ya – not after last time."

Cal doesn't look away from Merle. She throws the truth to the ground between them, refusing to play this game of his. "You mean the gun I was hiding from you?"

T-Dog snorts. "Can't say I blame you."

Merle's expression flattens.

"And then he tried to take my stuff. After I saved his life a couple times," she drones, still staring, staring, staring. "He almost killed me. Left me for dead and all that."

T-Dog glances between them, his discomfort growing as he realizes the thunderous look on Merle's face and the equally distant, detached stare on Cal's.

Merle's gun is on her in moments, finger hovering over the trigger. "Where's my baby brother?"

"I told you: I. Don't. Know."

"Pardon me if I don't believe you."

"Doesn't change the fact that I haven't seen him for almost a month," she bites, almost convincing herself. The gloves on her hands burn with heat.

Merle moves towards her, slow like a predator. The gun is still in his hand, finger hovering, waiting. He stops a breath away, his words a low whisper.

"If you're lying to me... I'll kill you both."

She doesn't need to see the gun to know he's pointing it at T-Dog. She doesn't need anything more than the promise in his words, and the sudden calm in his eyes.

Cal meets his gaze. Boldly. "I'm not."

Merle holds her eye for a moment longer, jaw tight as he considers her – and then he nods. "Alrigh'," he sets back, a lazy smile dragging across his face. "Then ya won't mind if we check the house."

T-Dog glances at Cal, but she doesn't look at him – her eyes are for Merle alone.

"By all means," she bites out.

Merle grins, a shadow passing across his features. "Best show me around there, mosquito-bites." He gestures with the gun: _lead the way._

They enter the house.

It is dead inside. Stale air presses into their lungs.

Time and an absence of life have reclaimed the home, greying the curtains with dust and rot, scattering filth across the floors.

There is a walker slumped at the bottom of the stairs, legs crushed into a pulp where it had fallen and the rest of the herd had trampled over it. It is as cold as the others had been, its eyes following them with a sedate, mild interest. It creaks as it shifts in want, but even the mild Georgian winter has deep claws, and the walker remains motionless.

Merle crushes its skull with his heel.

Cal leads through the Greene's home, through the dusty rooms of a different time. Merle slinks through the house more carefully than she remembers, prying open doors with practiced quiet, sliding into shadows as if he's always lived in the dark. He reminds her of Daryl in that moment - the thought repulses her.

The upper rooms prove to be empty, untouched. Unsurprisingly Merle rifles through the medicine cabinets; surprisingly he leaves all the prescription drugs behind.

When they return to the main floor he sweeps towards the kitchen, leaving them in the sitting room. T-Dog slumps onto the couch. Cal hovers near him, squared and stiff, watching Merle.

She doesn't look at T-Dog – she doesn't even glance at him. But her hand, tucked low and out of sight, points at Merle where he pokes around in the kitchen, her thumb cocking an imaginary hammer, her finger pulling an invisible trigger.

T-Dog sees it, every moment of it, and he knows she isn't going down without a fight.

She's declared war - and as quickly as she declares it, she clenches her hands into fists to hide the evidence. 

Merle flicks cupboards open with the tip of his knifed arm. The shelves are lined with canned and jarred foods.

"Funny you guys never thought to come back here."

The lie rolls easily off her tongue. "We wanted to."

"But you've been wanderin' ever since," Merle says.

"Yeah."

"Just the two of you."

"Yeah."

He watches her, gun still in his hand, knife glinting where it hangs at his side. He stalks from the kitchen, moving just out of her line of sight. A wicked smile cuts across his face when she swivels to watch him – it disappears just as quickly as it arrived, shadowed by the intelligent gleam of his eyes.

"Easy there girl, ain't gonna hurt you."

"I don't like turning my back on wild dogs," she replies flatly.

Merle makes a sound – something between a laugh and a growl.

"Smart."

"Maybe," Cal watches him circle the room.

Merle taps the edge of his knife against a framed picture on the mantle, a thin layer of dust collecting over the smiling faces of the Greene family. "You got family, Cal? Someone you care about besides this asshole?"

She stares at him, at the sedate way he rolls his eyes at T-Dog and back to the picture of Hershel and his family. Everything is so carefully measured – the threat so painfully evident that she wants to scream. And in his threat he rouses from her the submission she has wanted to remain a gentle truth – a soft place to call home in the night, a pair of hands to guide her in the dark, someone to chase the loneliness from a world gone awry.

_Daryl._

She realizes that he is something to her - something more than _just someone to protect from this bag of dicks_. She isn't certain what, but she knows it is deepening, quickening into something she hasn't felt in ages.

"Yeah," she says.

She isn't going to lie about this.

"Imagine havin' a _captive audience –_ two people who saw that _someone_ when you thought he was dead." Merle turns, the gun lazy in his hand. "What would you do?"

"Hey hey hey," T-Dog, swaying and weak and sweating, pushes himself from the couch. "We're lookin' for him too, man."

Merle ignores him, his eyes on Cal.

"Well, girly? What. Would. You. Do?"

She recalls the woman and her daughter being torn apart. An old vacuum pipe in hand. The closet was so dark and quiet. And suddenly the doll is in front of her eyes. The doll abandoned at the creek. Soggy and wet. The crossbow leveled on her. The defiance that had followed.

_Don't be afraid._

Cal regards Merle coolly.

Merle's expression flattens and his eyes harden. "You still an icy bitch after all this time, huh?"

She doesn't respond.

"Ain't surprised." Merle stalks through the living room, the tip of his knife dragging across pictures, wall hangings, digging into the dusty paint. Cal watches him carefully, jaw tight as he draws nearer and nearer until he's beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

His breath is hot and rank and disgusting against her neck.

"You know where my brother is." His eyes are unwavering, daring her to continue the lie. "I can be mighty amiable 'bout this whole situation. You can scribble it down on a map, I won't even drag your sorry asses with me. How does that sound, sweet cheeks?"

"Lay off her man," T-Dog hisses. "We ain't seen him."

Merle drawls. "Huh. That right?" He makes a point of looking Cal up and down. "Then where's all your gear? I know she packs light, but she sure as hell packs smart – havin' no gear ain't smart. Ain't that right, little girly?"

The gun presses into her ribs, right along the old scar where he had caught her with a knife so long ago. She tries not to show her fear, but the satisfaction in Merle's searching eyes leave her breathless. He knows.

He knows her.

He knows her almost better than the very people she wants to hide from him. He's seen her at her worst; he's pushed her to her worst. And maybe - maybe he had her at her best too. She remembers hesitating when she found him, his hand so erased it had been nothing more than a stinking stump of burnt flesh. She had helped him when the next person might have very well just gone - left.

She had saved his life.

How many lives had she saved?

His. Just his.

He knows her. Her knows her better than the very people she wants to hide from him.

Which means she has to tread the ground he hasn't known. She has to walk the path she hasn't walked since those early days, when scrambling over the bodies of the dying was the only way to survive.

_Don't hesitate to shoot first._

She feels like her teeth might break she clenches her jaw so tightly. She had been a fool to think she could lie to him – Merle was many things, but an idiot he was not.

On the couch T-Dog is silent, watchful.

"I'll ask one more time: where's my baby brother?"

She doesn't look at T-Dog – she doesn't even glance at him. She holds Merle's gaze, her eyes wide as the gun digs into her ribs.

"Okay," she sighs, almost breathless. "Let me see a map."

They go together to the truck outside. Merle fishes a map out of the glove box. It's old and weathered, splattered here and there with grime and crusted drops of _something_. He lays it out across the hood of the truck, in the same spot where Rick and Daryl had poured over the map to find Sophia. It wasn't so long ago, and yet...

T-Dog leans heavily on the truck's nose, and scratches at one of the brown specks staining the city of Atlanta. He looks almost bored, except his eyes never leave her. He watches her like a hawk – waiting.

"Alright, sugar tits," Merle gestures to the map in a grand flourish.

Cal stares at T-Dog, his crippled hand, at the flecks of gore spattered across the map. She glances at Merle.

"Whose blood is that?"

"Does it matter?" He rests his hand on the hood of the truck, gun drawn on T-Dog.

T-Dog's expression doesn't falter; there is no fear in his eyes. He's with her, she realizes. He's with her until the end.

Cal steps forward, swallowing thickly as she looks down at the map.

Where did you go to escape a man? Where did you go to kill him?

She points at a town, the name familiar to her. She can't recall where she's seen it, only that she has. It's a good a place as any – far enough from their new home to be safe.

Merle looks at where she points.

"Huh."

"Around there," Cal clarifies. "I won't tell you more until we're closer."

Merle stares at the map, nodding slowly. "You sure?" He asks.

She stares at him, uncertain of his tone. "Yeah."

Merle nods. "That your final answer?"

She hesitates.

He looks down at the map. "Woodbury," he announces.

The only warning she gets is a soft breath of a laugh.

The metal arm catches her in the side of the head, slamming her against the hood of the truck. She's too dazed to cry out, and instead scrabbles uselessly as he drives her cheek against the hood of the truck. The knife is a breadth away from her nose, the tip digging into the blood stained map.

"Uh, uh, uh." His gun is drawn and digging into T-Dog's forehead. He laughs – a raspy and grinding sound.

"Let me ask you one more time, darlin'," Merle speaks plainly. "You sure that's where my little brother is? Answer carefully – I might kill this nigger if you get the answer wrong."

He draws back the hammer.

Cal knows he isn't bluffing.

This is it. The end of the road. No way out. She wonders if the rest of them would survive Merle, or if he would blow through like a hurricane and kill everyone.

She looks up at T-Dog. He holds her eye for a long moment, jaw tightening.

His left hand. She sees it.

Fingers pointed, thumb cocking an invisible hammer, pulling the trigger.

T-Dog ducks and bats Merle's gun hand away, pulling his metal arm away from Cal. The two men swing into one another, a soft breath leaving T-Dog as Merle slams into him. He winds his arms around Merle, holding him back as Cal rolls off the hood of the truck and away.

She is frantic, darting for the gun in the dirt. It's heavy in her hands even as she rounds on the two men. T-Dog still clings to a bucking, writhing, yelling Merle; T-Dog's face contorted in concentration, the last vestige of strength poured into his moment.

She points the gun at Merle.

"Stop."

Merle goes limp, eyes wild and jaw tight as he looks down the barrel of his own gun. Her finger is on the trigger.

T-Dog suddenly wheezes, pulling away from Merle and collapsing against the truck. Merle and Cal look at him, at the blood painting his side and dripping from the tip of Merle's knife.

Cal looks at Merle. Merle holds up his hands.

"Now wait one-"

"Keys," she demands, pointing at her feet.

"I ain't giving you my truck."

Her eyes narrow, finger twitching against the trigger – itching, itching, _itching._

"Keys. Now."

Merle doesn't look away as he carefully fishes the keys from his pocket. He makes a show to reveal his hands, empty save for the broken fob and single key.

He takes a step forward.

Cal shoots him in the foot.

A breath leaves him; pain and rage paints his face.

Merle doesn't say a word as he hits the ground, he only stares at her. He stares at her as she moves forward, pulling and pushing on T-Dog until he's settled in the passenger seat of the truck. He doesn't look away even as she settles into the driver seat, revs the engine, pulls into reverse and speeds down the drive.

He doesn't look away.

* * *

Twilight is upon them.

She doesn't look away from the rearview mirror until they've turned off the main drive. She wants to watch every moment she puts space between her and Merle. She wants to see him shrink into oblivion.

"Cal," T-Dog's voice is quiet or maybe it's the ringing in her ears.

She's never shot someone before. _Don't hesitate to shoot first._

"Cal."

Suddenly remembering the blood on his shirt she looks at T-Dog and pales.

He's staring out the window, eyes unfocused. His hand is pressed to his side, clutching at the thick, dark blood that spills between his fingers. His chin nearly hits his chest, so lost in some wayward thought is he, that he startles himself and blinks at her drunkenly.

"Cal," he repeats.

"We need Hershel," she hisses, shrugging out of her jacket and shoving it at him. The truck swerves dramatically, but she manages to right it _and_ tuck the coat against his side. "Put pressure on that."

T-Dog nods, and turns to look out the window. His eyes, unfocused, stare out at the dying light of the day.

She drives faster.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a chapter I'm wholly confident in. This was a shit show to write.
> 
> I waffled between several chapters of them being held hostage, and one where it was over as quickly as it started - something I started realizing was more realistic when looking at how volatile Merle was in the first half of season 3. Merle brutalized Glenn for very similar reasons to Cal and T-Dog, but Glenn really lacked any involvement in Merle's rooftop holiday, whereas both Cal and T-Dog had tried to off him at some point. I decided that this was probably the second most volatile situation I could stick Merle in (the most being with Rick present), and decided that this meeting would reflect that. Thus he came, he saw, and he fucked shit up.
> 
> Also, I apologize for the delay in these chapters. I am currently working on an original fiction as well, and only have so much time to write.
> 
> Much love!


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Decorate my Bones by Snow Ghosts

_this place grows colder_

_as strong as we are_

_with every rope swing i struggle for air_

_i know i'm breathing but is it still there_

_are you still there_

* * *

The woods are quiet.

Daryl stands just inside the treeline, staring into the frosted wood. The fog is dense enough that he can hardly see a hundred feet. A walker could be standing there - or a man with a gun.

He bites at the inside of his lip. Useless having someone on watch.

He turns slowly to head back to the house, his hands in his pockets and crossbow tucked into his elbow. He had snared a rabbit earlier, the thing so uselessly thin that he had wondered if it was even worth skinning. It hangs from his hip, bumping against his leg.

He prefers it to the idea of canned mystery meat.

The trees part. The long drive of their home stretches before him. Daryl walks quietly along the road until he's staring up at the house, searching for her face in the attic window.

But she isn't there.

The attic window is empty.

Daryl frowns. A chill curls along his spine and settles in the pit of his gut - a feeling he can't quite place. He stares at the yawning dark of the attic window for a moment longer before he ducks into the house.

He nearly bumps into Dale emerging from the kitchen.

"You seen Cal?"

"Last I saw her she was on watch."

Daryl mulls over his words and nods, sidestepping Dale to move up the stairs.

"Listen, Daryl -" Dale begins, but Daryl is already rounding the corner at the top of the landing, shooting him one last look to butt out.

Daryl heads for the attic first, stepping into the cold room, surrounded by a cloud of his own frosty breath. The attic window is ajar, the small seat they had arranged at its mouth empty.

He frowns and leaves, heading for the small closet he shares with her.

It to, is empty.

That chill quivers through him again, and he has a brief and unsettling thought that she is gone. Gone. He knows she wouldn't just leave, hopes, but he still casts a glance to where she squirrels her stuff away, hating himself for doubting her.

It remains, untouched.

But that feeling in the pit of his stomach remains.

He retreats from the room, winding his way through the house until he stumbles across Rick and Carl where they hover over their latest project - the homemade silencers courtesy of Merle.

"You seen Cal?"

Rick looks up from where he tightens a hose clamp around the end of a bottle. "I spoke with her earlier, she was on watch."

Daryl shakes his head. "She ain't there now."

Rick frowns. "What'd you mean she ain't there? Who is on watch?"

"No one. Attics empty."

"I saw her," Carl pipes up, eyes darting between them.

Both Daryl and Rick turn slowly. Carl hesitates under their scrutiny and fiddles with the pieces of metal in his hands. "I saw her leave with T-Dog."

* * *

Daryl offers to take watch. Anything to placate Rick's exasperation with Cal abandoning her post. It earns him a grateful nod and a mumbled thank you.

He sits himself in the window, tucking himself into the blanket on the chair. The drive disappears into the fog. He stares as far down the road as the fog allows. He considers the undefined and blurry shapes of the treeline and outbuildings, the sun as it fades. All things that made leaving the house not exactly a smart choice. The disadvantages were too great.

The feeling in his gut evolves. He feels something prowling there, small and insignificant, nourished further into life as the hours pass. It isn't as the sun starts dipping below the horizon and Cal and T-Dog still aren't back that he realizes what it is.

It's fear.

He knows he shouldn't worry for her, that she can take care of herself. Cal is a lot of things, but she ain't stupid. She'd survived longer than the rest of them - alone, without anyone else. She knows what the new world is like more intimately than they do.

But she'd never take unnecessary risks like marching into a blurry, shapeless world. She'd never go wandering around when there was no advantage to be had. And she'd never be out after dark unless she had run into trouble.

When the sun finally dies and the world goes dark, Daryl leaves his post.

* * *

There is blood everywhere.

The smell is thick - thick enough to coat her tongue and wash away the smell of the dead world, the cold of winter, the fog that still presses in around them.

Her foot is heavy on the pedal and she drives fast enough that even T-Dog - in shock and dying - grasps weakly at the dashboard in alarm. But it doesn't matter - his fear is unfounded. The road is open and yielding; no cars to worry about, no walkers to fret over.

The only thing she can think of is the sun falling behind the horizon, made darker by the thickness of the fog encompassing the world. The dark will slow them down - but she can't…

Her jaws tightens, her hands grip the wheel harder. Cal glances at T-Dog, at her shitty jacket soaking through with blood, at Madge's nametag as bland and dirty as the first day she shrugged that damn jacket on. It had bought them time today with how dirty and ruined it was, but he had known. Merle had known she was liar because she didn't have a single scrap of equipment or provisions.

He had attacked because she had made a mistake.

Woodbury.

She remembers finding the photo: Brandon and Jessica, Woodbury.

He was angry when he attacked. Her head pulsing at the thought of where he had caught her with his arm - his metal arm.

Let me ask you one more time, darlin'.

He had been so sure she was lying. He had baited her, waiting to see if she would keep to the lie.

And now.

Now T-Dog was bleeding out.

Her fault, she thinks. Her fault for staying. For getting close. For not wanting to be alone - not really.

She had fled the house because she let someone get close. T-Dog followed her because he was her friend.

He was hurt, maybe even dying, because he was her friend.

"Cal," T-Dog's voice breaks her from her revery, and she blinks stupidly as she realizes the light has almost completely died. She switches the headlights on, wincing at how bright they are.

A beacon.

We're right here - come and get us.

"Cal."

She glances at T-Dog, at his pale and sweating face. He leans back against the headrest, staring at her from the corner of his eye.

"You shot that mother fucker in the foot."

Cal nearly laughs - she would have if she wasn't so scared.

"Yeah."

T-Dog frowns. "I would'a shot him in the head," he slurs.

She smiles, strained.

"Maybe I should have." She concedes.

T-Dog makes a sound, a snort.

Then there is quiet.

She glances at him.

His eyes are heavy, but he's still with her. She has no idea how much blood he's lost, remembering someone, long ago, splashing a litre of red paint on the ground and telling her to not be afraid. It always looks worse than it is. It always looks like so much more than there is.

But he's pale and sweating.

"You think it'll be easy?"

She blinks, uncertain. "What?"

He swallows. "Explaining to Daryl that you didn't shoot his brother in the head?"

Cal doesn't reply.

The sun is gone now. The light is sucked from the world. It's too dark to go as fast as she can, too dangerous. She eases off the gas pedal, wincing as the mileage drops, drops, drops.

* * *

There are tracks leading past the treeline at the edge of the drive. Daryl follows them.

The wood greets him, the quiet of it winding about him - as she had taken to doing in the night. Even in a world gone to hell, the quiet encompassing him is comforting.

In one hand he carries his crossbow, and in the other a flashlight, sweeping low across the ground as he follows the tracks through the dark wood.

The tracks tell him something that Carl couldn't - they tell him how she had left the house. She had fled. She had run, darting through the trees with a desperate gait that spoke of fear or anger or something.

T-Dog's tracks followed at a more sedate pace; T-Dog's tracks were not nearly as desperate.

Daryl frowns when he comes across the barb wire fence, stepping under it with a grimace and continuing on. The tracks lead him to the road.

He checks the other side of the road and finds nothing - no tracks or any indication that they had simply crossed and continued on.

He stands in the middle of the road for a long moment, staring down the road towards town. If he hadn't found her jagged tracks he might assume she was on a supply run and head towards town.

Daryl turns back to regard the road stretching towards home.

He begins the long walk, knowing without a doubt he chose the right direction when he stumbles across the first dead walker, and then the next.

And then he finds the dead man.

* * *

At some point she realizes that he's from Woodbury - he's got to be. It happens somewhere between remembering pulling the trigger and shooting Merle in the foot, and berating herself for T-Dog bleeding out in the seat next to her.

Woodbury. He'd been so sure.

So sure she was lying.

Let me ask you one more time, darlin'.

She's so lost in the name of a faceless town, of a man she should have killed, of her dying friend that she nearly hits a walker standing idle in the middle of the road.

She hisses, swerving the truck. Another walker appears in her headlights, and the truck roars over it - a hard thunk and then the jolting of tires. She can't see it in the rearview mirror, the fog and dark are so thick.

She slows enough to right the vehicle back into the center of the road, frustrated with herself and everything about this fucked up situation. T-Dog is quiet beside her, watching as she grits her teeth and digs her fingers into the wheel and drives.

At some point the silence is unbearable enough that T-Dog lets out a gasp. "CD?"

Cal darts a glance at the play button on the CD player. She pushes it.

"Come on baby, don't fear the reaper. Baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper. We'll be able to fly."

T-Dog lets out a wheezing laugh.

* * *

Daryl stares at the body of a man only recently dead.

A man, not a walker.

Gunshot to the head.

He swallows thickly and checks the sides of the road for tracks. There is nothing.

He continues down the road, the fear spiking when he notices the blood on the ground, frozen in the coolness of winter, dark against the concrete. There is a gun on the road, abandoned. The suppressor on it is one of the first few they had made.

He feels fear spike in his chest, a pit that yawns open and begs him to leap.

He checks the sides of the road again.

It is in the frost-flattened grasses that he finds her knife, discarded. The only consolation is that it had not been ripped or cut off of her, but unbuckled and thrown aside.

Not lightly would she part with her knife, and in that familiarity he comes to understand the truth: Cal has been taken.

* * *

They take a wrong turn, ending up in the small town with the burnt out Save Lots.

Cal swallows thickly as she reverses, driving the truck down the road she's familiar with - the same road she had driven with Rick.

She chokes back a sob when she spots the turn off to the farm. She roars down the drive, uncaring whether the sound of the engine will attract walkers or people.

* * *

Daryl moves through the trees, heading towards the house with a single intention: to ask for Rick's help.

It drives him on, focuses him. His need to find her swallowing up the fear coiling in his gut and heart and soul.

As he nears the house the quiet of the wood is shattered, the darkness pushed back by two spectral lights gleaming through the fog.

Headlights, he realizes. And a truck barreling down the main drive, heading straight for the house.

There are a thousand thoughts going through his mind; of ransom; of a party of men like Randall's shitbag friends coming to steal their shit and kill them all; of Cal.

Daryl races through the wood, not knowing whether this is war.

* * *

No one sees the truck come rumbling down the drive.

But they hear it.

They go quiet, listening as the sound of wheels skid on gravel, headlights pouring in the front windows. The car door opens and there is the sound of someone running, running, running across gravel, up the steps.

Everyone is on their feet, weapons in hand, as the door bursts open. Cal, wide eyed and bloodied and stumbling, stares at them all. She gasps, her eyes sweeping the room for someone that isn't there, before landing on Hershel and Rick.

"T-Dog needs help."

It's enough to spur them on. Rick and Glenn pushing around her, Dale and Hershel and Maggie stumbling behind. Cal follows the flood of bodies, racing faster than any of them as she reaches the passenger door of the truck and rips it open.

"We need to move him - now." Hershel demands, and Glenn and Rick step in to pull their friend from the belly of the cab.

"What happened?" Rick demands as they half-carry, half-drag T-Dog towards the house.

Cal follows, hands and face and torso covered in blood.

"Merle."

The group nearly stutters at his name, but Hershel keeps them moving, pressing them into the living room where Lori drags a wide eyed Carl to the corner. Carol freezes until Hershel asks for water, cloth, anything that can help. She moves, suddenly clear eyed and ready with purpose.

They move him to the couch, settling him down. Hershel props his legs up, murmuring that it might not help with the amount of blood loss, but at this point it doesn't hurt to try.

The room is a hurricane, a tornado, a thunderstorm. Hershel and T-Dog at the eye of it.

She stares, the reality of the day finally pushing past every wall she has in place, demanding to be heard, to be felt. It floods over her, down her throat, drowning her.

She disconnects.

And falls away.

She remembers a tune. A sweet tune whistled into the evening sunset. It eases her into the dark, and she remembers a man with a kindness to his face, who had handed her the keys to his car and walked away. He hadn't had any time left. He had been on his last hour.

She had thought he was the last kindness she had seen.

She had thought he was the last true goodness in the world.

But T-Dog.

T-Dog had saved her.

He had followed her into hell.

And these people - the panic on their faces is real as they scramble to save him. As they work as a unit - no, she corrects herself, a family.

She stumbles forward as if to help.

But Lori is suddenly there, grabbing her arms and leading her away. Murmuring quietly about chocolate and a blanket and sitting down somewhere warm.

Cal stares at her, blinking from T-Dog to Lori to a man whistling a tune to a woman and her child begging, pleading, gasping for a second chance.

She nods, suddenly mute. Her hands, she realizes are shaking. And then she realizes that she's cold.

She's in shock again.

Forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell.

Cal pushes against it, trying to rationalize her way through the labyrinth of fucked up shit she remembers. She tries to push past the cop and his lovely, kind face. She tries to push past the woman and her child screaming for help. She tries to push past Merle leaving her for dead.

She tries to push past T-Dog dying.

She grasps for something, anything.

And suddenly - he's there.

His hand slips into her own. Calloused and rough fingertips gliding gently across her pulse, coiling and encompassing her.

She stares at it, at the way it is as familiar to her as her own heart. Home is no tangible place, she thinks, but the soft place in your heart where the things you love find shelter.

She looks up at him, at the careful and quiet stare, the dirt across his cheeks, the leaves in his hair. She doesn't think when she reaches up to wipe a smudge of dirt from his cheek. Her fingers are crusted with blood, but she still tries.

He watches her, but doesn't shy away.

"Daryl."

His hand is still in hers as if he knows he is her tether to the present, the now. He lifts their entwined hands to his chest, his heart a steady tattoo under her touch. And then he pulls her against him, offering her his touch.

She accepts it. She wants it. She needs it.

"Daryl." She repeats.

He tucks her crown under his chin. "Ain't gotta say nothing."

She hasn't cried since this whole thing started; she hasn't let herself stop and think and really consider what she has seen or done. She had always been decent at compartmentalizing, but now - with someone she considers a friend hurt because of her, and Daryl holding her as she imagines no one has ever held _him._

She finally cries.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else do that? Hold everything in until it bursts like a dam and swallows you whole? I think our pal Cal might need to sit down and deal with some shit she's been carrying with her, but IDK.


	26. Chapter 26

Daryl rushes back from the road, moving through the shadowy places of the wood as quickly and quietly as he can. The truck that had roared down the drive had long since gone quiet, and as he nears the house he sees movement through the poorly boarded front windows.

A single glance in the cab paints a horrific tale - one of blood and gore. The jacket - _her_ jacket is bloodied and ruined.

Daryl feels the sudden death of hope, of dreaming, of a future where laughter and safety had been real.

He rushes into the house, a familiar burning building in his gut. It is the first simmering taste of anger, but he knows it will evolve into rage. Rage that someone had hurt her, that someone might have stolen every possibility away from him.

Rage that he hadn't realized that possibility until this very moment.

Rage that he hadn't allowed it to be more than _just keeping an eye on you._

When he steps into the living room he feels a moment of that anger flourish - and then die.

It isn't Cal that everyone bends over, but T-Dog. T-Dog is the one on the couch, Hershel bent over him, brow furrowed as he works on a knife wound to his gut and his hand - his hand... He can't tell what is wrong with his hand besides that it iss bound and looks so _wrong._

"She's in shock."

Daryl looks at Dale, Dale who stares at him with those wide eyes. _I told you so_ and _no need to apologize_ are in those wide eyes. Daryl doesn't say a word. He just nods and turns.

He finds Lori in the kitchen, searching the cupboards for a chocolate bar or something sugary. She glances at him when he enters and gestures mutely to the corner.

A ghost huddles there.

Cal is grey. Ashen. Covered in blood. And she stares at some immutable truth, eyes wide and unseeing as she tumbles down a well of memories.

He knows - he's seen that look before.

Her hand, he notices, reaches for something - anything.

So he offers himself.

"Ain't gotta say nothing," he murmurs.

And she cries.

* * *

Lori leaves the room.

And the house slowly melts away.

He's holding her, hands gripping her as tightly as she grips him.

They spiral together into some weird, shitty despair. He can't stop the grief clutching at his own heart - for her, he realizes. His heart aches and bleeds and despairs for _her._ That in itself is a startling realization, one that makes him both clutch at her more desperately and hold her more gently.

She had crept into his soul - he can't quite figure out when or how, but she did. It might have been in her own quiet way; or how she had asked him so plainly if he wanted to be alone; or maybe it was just her - all of her.

Daryl stares at the wall as she cries, sobs against him. Even that is quiet - breathy huffs that slide against his neck.

He doesn't know how long they stand there, but Cal eventually stills. She doesn't move away, and so they stand there longer - still holding on to one another.

They stands there for what feels like a breath, but a hand touches his shoulder, jolting them back into reality. Cal has long since stopped crying; Daryl's hands ache from how tightly he had gripped her. Rick stands at his side, staring at them both.

"Hershel patched up T-Dog as best he could."

Cal looks up from where she had buried her face in Daryl's shoulder, her eyes red and swirling with delirium.

"He's lost a lot of blood, but he'll live."

She stares long and hard before a croaked whisper escapes her tear-dried lips. "I want to see him."

Daryl's hands are suddenly filled with cold air and nothingness; his hands are empty as she stumbles from the kitchen, bloodied fingers clutching at the wall and piles of canned foods as if she still needs something to hold onto.

And then she's gone.

Rick and Daryl stand in the quiet Cal leaves behind. Daryl stares at the doorway, uncertain whether she had been there at all - uncertain if he had held her and been held in turn, if he had been _needed._

_She had needed him._

"She needs you," Rick says.

Daryl blinks and looks at him. At first he sees nothing but the sorrow of whatever happened to T-Dog and Cal, but then he sees the tightness in Rick's jaw, the determination in his eyes that lap at the shores of uncertainty.

Daryl watches as Rick's hands rest on his hips, his fingers moments away from the grip of his Python. In that moment he knows Rick is going to deliver him one hell of a shit sandwich.

"It was Merle."

There is something strange about hearing that name again, and for a moment Daryl can't quite comprehend what exactly Rick is talking about.

"What?"

Rick regards him carefully before replying. "Cal said it was Merle."

Merle.

Merle is alive.

His brother is alive.

He blinks, and turns - stopping only when a hand stays him. He glances down at Rick's hand on his shoulder.

Rick's eyes are imploring. He shoots a cautious look towards the living room, and ducks closer, his shoulder blocking Daryl's as he murmurs quietly. "I don't think it's a good idea to go asking her about it _right now."_

But Merle.

Daryl nearly brushes past, but Rick steps into his path again.

"Let _me_ talk to her."

"He's my brother," Daryl growls.

"And Cal needs _you._ "

And just like that Daryl focuses, he hesitates. Cal and Merle; Merle and Cal.

"Let me talk to her," Rick repeats. "We'll find out what happened."

There is a part of Daryl that wants to rage and curse and spit. He wants to demand answers and find Merle, his brother, his family. That familiar anger boiling under his skin is there - it is always there -, but it suddenly sputters at Rick's words, at his honesty. It sputters and dies at the thought of Cal. Cal covered in blood, staring into the eyes of some unseen memory, reaching for something - anything.

_She needs you._

* * *

From where she sits in the living room she can see T-Dog lying on the couch, sleeping but alive. Hershel sits beside him, watching with a patient, kind expression.

"Cal?"

A hand reaches out, a warm cloth pressing into her palm.

She blinks, at the hand, at the cloth, at Rick who perches on a box in front of her. Behind him Daryl leans against the frame of the living room door, watching, chewing at his thumbnail - something she hasn't seen him do in weeks.

She accepts the cloth. There is a bowl cradled in Rick's hand, the water inside steaming.

She stares at her hands, crusted with dried blood.

_I never meant for this to happen._

Words she wants to say, but can't.

She rubs the cloth against the back of her hand, watching silently as nothing happens. Her hands are stained with T-Dog's blood, _her friend's blood._

_I never meant for this to happen._

"T-Dog'll be alright." Rick watches her, his expression careful.

Her voice is soft, hardly more than a whisper. "What about his hand?"

Rick glances at Hershel, his jaw working as he thinks of what to say.

"He lost his thumb." Hershel offers the words instead.

Cal's knuckles are white with how tightly she clutches the cloth.

Rick leans forward, offering her the bowl of hot water to rinse the cloth. She eyes it warily before accepting; everyone is mesmerized by the scarlet cloud the cloth leaves behind.

"What happened?" Rick asks.

Cal dips her hands into the water, ignoring the dirty water sloshing over the sides and soaking the carpet at their feet. She stares at the water, swirling and red, spilling over the sides as she begins scrubbing her skin clean - raking her nails across the backs of her hands, down her wrists, in the beds of her nails.

No one says anything.

"We went for a walk." T-Dog's voice is a startling, world shattering sound.

Everyone stills.

Where he lies on the couch, nestled beneath a pile of blankets, T-Dog is hardly more than a whisper of a human.

"Merle found us on the road. Came right out of the mist like a ghost."

There is a deep silence that follows.

"He wanted you," T-Dog murmurs to Daryl. "But -"

"Nah," Daryl agrees, casting a glance at Cal. "Probably a good thing you didn't bring him back."

"I didn't want him to find you - any of you." Cal's voice is quieter even than T-Dog's. She doesn't looks up from her hands, her skin raw and patchy with blood. "He was looking for Daryl. And you -" she finally looks at Rick. "He wanted to _find you."_

_He wanted to kill you._ Words she doesn't have to say.

She looks down at her hands again, rubbing her thumb along her stained knuckles, and tells them in hushed whispers of the journey to the farm, the decision to fight, Merle catching her in her lie, and the inevitable struggle that saw T-Dog stabbed.

"How'd you get away?" Rick asks.

Cal still doesn't look up. "I shot him - and I left him there."

Daryl moves from the door, shoulders hunched as he stares down at Cal. "You shot-"

"Daryl -" Rick warns.

Cal lifts her gaze to look Daryl in the eye.

She had fled the house earlier because she had felt an inkling of anger. Anger at his connection to a man who had nearly beat her to death. She had fled because she knew it was unfair to judge him and to be angry with him for a connection he had no control over.

Cal realizes now that her anger has melted away. Instead, fear flounders in her heart. Fear that he will make a choice - one that doesn't involve her. Fear that he will destroy her more soundly than his brother ever could.

_Do you want to be alone?_ The very question he'd asked her so long ago, right after she had shared her intention to leave..

She had replied once: _I don't know._

She knows what her answer would be now.

"I need to know if my brother is still alive," Daryl rasps, desperation in his eyes.

He can't see it, she thinks. He can't see that she needs him.

"He's alive."

Daryl breathes a sigh of relief, his hands coasting down his face.

"He'll kill you," she breathes to Rick.

"Cal -"

"It was him," she murmurs, staring down at her hands. "He's the man from town. He's the one that left me for dead... When you first found me…"

A silence follows her admission - deep and stretching as it encompasses the room. Rick stares at Cal; Cal looks up, slowly, to Daryl; Daryl can't look away.

"I found him on the side of the road. Arm cooked off. He was dying."

"I cuffed him to a roof in Atlanta," Rick admits.

"And I lost the keys." T-Dog coughs.

Daryl.

Daryl starts to pace.

"He told me as much," Cal's voice is quiet. "Never your names. Just that it happened. We helped each other. We survived - and then we fought over supplies -" she looks away from them all, remembering vividly how desperately they had grappled for the pack.

She had fought a titan.

"I lost."

_And he left me for dead,_ she doesn't say.

"I didn't know… I didn't know he was your brother until today."

They are silent at that. Rick staring and Daryl pacing, and fuming, and wrestling with that anger she knows he wants to retreat to.

"I didn't want him to find you," Cal repeats. She glances at Daryl - Daryl who refuses to meet her eye. "I didn't want him to find _any of you._ I'm sorry."

A long moment stretches between them all. Rick reaches out, his hand coiling over her's. It is unspoken, but the meaning of his grip rings true: _thank you._

"Daryl-" T-Dog's words fail on his lips, and both Rick and Cal turn to see Daryl shrug his crossbow over his shoulder.

"You say he's at the farm?" He asks with a nod towards Cal.

"It's almost fifty miles away -"

Rick stands, jaw tight as he realizes just what Daryl plans. "You can't bring him back here," he hisses, eyes flaring. "We've got people we need to protect."

Daryl stares long and hard, his eyes never wavering from Rick - even as Cal stands, hands clutching at herself, eyes wild in turn.

"He's my brother -"

"He tried to kill _our_ people -" Rick steps into his space, ducking his chin so he has Daryl's eye. " _Our_ people, Daryl."

Daryl holds his eye for a long, stretching moment, jaw working as he considers Rick's plea.

"I gotta go," Daryl breathes. "I ain't gonna leave him out there."

He leaves.

The resounding silence left in his wake is tangible. It sucks the very air out of their lungs. They stare in disbelief.

A bitter tang rises in her throat. She can feel something pinching her throat, her tongue. She is exhausted as her heart lurches in her chest, crying out for what is and what could be.

Cal struggles out of her seat, her legs shaking as the shock of the day falls to exhaustion. She shuffles across the room, out of the house, and into the cold night, the fog pressing around her. Daryl is a shade stalking through the dark, and she moves to follow him.

His name is a croaked prayer on her lips. "Daryl."

He doesn't hear her.

She repeats his name, louder.

He stills, shoulders stiff.

"Please…" She whispers.

"He's my brother. I ain't gonna leave him out there."

He turns, and she sees it in his eyes. A plea.

_Don't._ It says. _Don't ask me to stay. Don't ask me to choose._

She trembles. She can feel her fear snaking about her chest, entwining itself about her heart and squeezing. To be alone…

She can see him begging, silently pleading. _Don't ask me to choose._

Cal can feel it - her heart splintering.

In that moment she makes a choice. A choice to be better than the fear coiling about her insides; a choice to be better than the very man Daryl looks to run after.

It nearly kills her to speak.

"I'm not saying that." She wishes she was. She wishes she was begging him to leave Merle behind. But she can't. She can't force him to, and she certainly can't ask him to turn away from blood - even if it's _Merle -_ even if she desperately wants to. To force him would be to ruin him, and an ultimatum would only drive him further from the quiet place they had found for themselves. No, she can't force him - and she can't ask that of him, because it's Daryl. It's Daryl. _It's Daryl._

She knows Merle's claws dig deep, she can see their relation so clearly now; his influence visible in the pacing anger, the quick temper, the rough edges that make up Daryl Dixon. But where Merle was angry because that _was exactly who Merle was,_ Daryl was angry because he'd been dragged through the mud by his brother and told that it was the only way to survive.

She can't ask him to turn his back on the man that taught him that - the man that had taught him to grasp and grapple and _fight_ for more time.

But...

But she can stand aside and let him choose between surviving and living. Even if his final decision breaks that quiet, soft thing that had flourished in the gentle places of her heart.

"I'm not saying that," Cal repeats.

He falters at first - and then squints in anger, looking for some manipulation, some tactic. His anger and caution are his only defense, she thinks. It is the only thing he's ever been allowed to know.

"Your brother scares the shit out of me," she whispers. She steps closer and reaches out, her fingers coiling around his wrist. His arm tenses under her touch. "But you don't. You aren't him, Daryl. You aren't Merle."

In a whisper she asks, "do you want to be alone?"

It isn't a threat. It isn't a question meant to guilt or manipulate. It is a path - a choice he can make and that she would yield to.

Daryl stares at her long and hard. His eyes flicker with understanding as his anger suddenly dissipates. "He's my brother," he rasps one last time, as if that alone explains everything there is to understand.

Cal stares at him. "I know."

Her hand falls to her side, releasing him.

And then he leaves, and she watches him go.

* * *

She stands outside for a long time after that, looking as far into the night as the fog allows. It is only when Rick drapes a blanket around her shoulders and murmurs for her to come in that she retreats.

The house is still around them.

Rick regards her carefully. "What Merle did - Daryl… He ain't like that."

Cal glances at Rick, her eyes shadowed and heavy with exhaustion. "I know," she murmurs, and slowly moves to ascend the stairs to her room.

She shrugs out of her dirtied clothes and crawls under the tousled blankets. Her eyes flutter shut, and despite her exhaustion sleep eludes her.

In the quiet dark she reflects on the splintering pieces of her heart.


	27. Chapter 27

_Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,_

_while loving someone deeply gives you courage_

_\- Lao Tzu_

* * *

There is a sound in his ear. A pounding.

It's the only thing he hears as her hand drops from his wrist, as she lets him go.

_Do you want to be alone?_

* * *

The night is unkind.

The mist is too thick, the sky too dark. The headlights are a swirl of fog before his eyes. He drives painstakingly slow after he hits a walker just down the drive, the right side mirror gone in a splash of brown and black gore.

He doesn't know how long he drives, only that he leaves in the night, trying to push her touch from his memory. He eyes his wrist, unmarred to the eye, but burning with an unseen fire. He feels her hand drop from his wrist - over and over and over. Releasing him.

Releasing him from the quiet they shared, and the very real possibility of what it might have become.

* * *

His brother is alive.

The thought should make him happy, but it feels remarkably like the time he found out Merle had survived drowning in both a literal and figurative gutter, spiraling down among drugs and alcohol. It's a sour feeling lost in purgatory of two emotions, a wayward place between relief and anger.

This time the anger is dominant, rearing its ugly head higher and higher. He isn't sure if it's because of Merle - or the knowledge that going to Merle means losing something he never thought he'd ever attain in his life.

* * *

The grey of morning greets him, and the sun burns away the fog - if only a bit.

He finds the farmhouse, grimmer and greyer than it once was. In the distance, muted and distorted by the winter fog, the charred husk of the barn and the skeleton of Dale's RV are glaring reminders of what once was and what was lost.

He wonders what might have been if Cal had never shown up. Where would they be? _Who would they be?_

Daryl pulls into the familiar lot and parks facing back down the drive. Everywhere he looks there are the distorted remains of the walkers that had marched on the farm and fallen. Near the house there is a ring of bones and half frozen parts, the final morbid testament of the two women that had been dragged down by the undead. He looks away, remembering how he had seen Cal fall so close to them, his heart having grown still in that moment of pure, abject terror.

For a long moment he sits in silence, hands tight on the wheel, eyes glued to his wrist and that phantom touch that burns down to his core.

_"Your brother scares the shit out of me."_

The farmhouse looms before him, the front door ajar, windows thick with shadows.

He leaves the car, his armed crossbow cradled against his chest. The only sound he can hear is that same pounding in his ears - the wind, the crunch of gravel underfoot, even his breath is silenced by the perpetual, unending, unsatisfied drumming.

" _But you don't."_

His wrist burns as he moves up the steps, skirting a trail of blood still drying in the humid chill of winter. It's sticky - fresher than anything else he's seen in a long time. He doesn't know if it's Merle's blood or T-Dog's.

Daryl steps across the threshold into the dark and dusty space.

" _You aren't him, Daryl. You aren't Merle."_

* * *

Glenn's map is an unholy artifact. Pandora's box rests before her, and without hesitation, she opens it.

Georgia is small on paper. The roads are easier to traverse. The walls fairer to climb. The only threat is the jagged arrows scattered about - the vast herds and their movements.

And maybe, she thinks, another threat might exist. One that she knows the name of, a whisper that plagued her in her heartache, and soured her nightmares.

Woodbury.

In the tension of their encounter, that simple moment of untruth had betrayed her - and yielded something in turn: Merle was from Woodbury.

She runs her finger along the map, knowing where Woodbury sits on the far side of Senoia. She hesitates for a moment at its size - it's barely a town, nothing more than a strip road and a scattering of houses.

Cal runs her eyes along the map, pinpointing the Greene's ruined farmhouse, Woodbury, and their current residence.

She frowns, realizing with a chill that Woodbury is much closer than she thought. In their wandering they had found themselves only a stone's throw from the town - the burnt out Save Lots and it's scattering of equally charred homes was the only development between them.

"Isn't that Glenn's map?" Rick materializes out of thin air, a mug of shitty coffee in one hand and a can of beans in the other. He hands her the beans - she accepts them quickly, hoping he hadn't seen her fingering the small blur that makes up Woodbury.

"It is."

"He's been looking for it for a few days now."

Cal sips her her coffee. The map is vastly more interesting now that Rick hovers at her side. She knows why he's there - and why he's been out of the corner of her eye all day. The first thing she had seen that morning was Rick slumped against the wall at the foot of the stairs, folded up beneath a blanket. She knew he was waiting for her - or Daryl. Whichever one stumbled across him first.

She'd stepped over him, quieter than she'd ever been.

"I'm just looking it over," Cal's voice is soft, gentle.

Rick watches her carefully, considers the way she won't meet his eye. "He'll be fine."

Cal stiffens imperceptibly. He hadn't seen her touring the roads between their current home and Woodbury; he hadn't seen her trailing different routes between their home - and _wherever_ Merle came from.

Rick continues on, unphased. "Daryl survived Merle before this - he'll survive him again."

Cal's jaw tightens. She doesn't want to tell him that surviving is different than living - and surviving someone, some _thing_ like Merle is not necessarily an accomplishment.

There is no victory in war.

Cal swallows the last of her coffee, ignoring the sharp bite of heat down her throat. In a quiet voice she asks, "If you saw Merle again, what would you do?"

Rick eyes her curiously. "Why?"

Her gaze stutters. Hardly, but enough that Rick narrows his eyes at her. A cop is a cop, she thinks.

"I want to -" she clenches and unclenches her hands, jaw tight with violence.

Rick nods slowly. "That's fair."

"I don't think fair is the right word - for wanting someone… hurt." _Dead._ She can't even say the word. "I think it's just vindictive."

Rick's brow furrows. "Some might call it justice."

She drags her thumb along a printed interstate, she brushes her fingertips along a scattering of backroads.

"I don't think justice is the right word either," she says, her finger pauses, hovering over a speck of a town. She searches for a word to match her heart. Instead she finds herself giving voice to a bitter truth. "I should have shot him in the head."

Rick looks down at the map beneath her hands. "Daryl would still be gone."

Her eyes find the small red X that marks the Greene farm. Fifty miles. It feels like eternity.

In a small voice she gives word to a possibility - a biting, painful possibility. "He might not come back."

Rick's jaw tightens. "You don't know that."

Cal isn't a fool. She's been on this side before - she's watched someone walk away. But the distinguishing difference between them is that one she begged and pleaded with not to leave - and the other…

She almost laughs - almost. A breath escapes her in a gasp, and she nearly chokes. "I let him go," she whispers.

"You had too." Rick still doesn't look at her.

And Rick is right.

She _had too_.

She knows that if she had asked Daryl, he would have stayed. He had left only when she let him go.

* * *

She doesn't know how long she sits there, only that the grey light of morning has drifted into a slightly brighter grey of afternoon. Rick has taken a seat across from her, waiting in a solemn quiet that makes her feel uneasy.

The map sits open between them.

Without preamble she announces, "I think Merle is from Woodbury."

Rick looks up sharply. "What?"

Cal drops her thumb on the small speck of land they call home. She doesn't lift her eyes from the space between her fingers - a hair's breadth. "I lied to him - about where we were from. I said Woodbury. And he was so - sure. He knew I was lying."

Rick nods, a flare of light in his eyes. "Might be a ghost town. Might be he knows that."

Cal's eyes narrow imperceptibly.

"Or," Rick amends. "He's from Woodbury."

For a long moment neither of them speak. They stare at the map between them, the breadth between her thumb and forefinger so dangerously small.

She thinks of Merle, of his careful consideration, how he'd scrutinized her. He'd known she was lying just from the state of her supplies, her dirtied coat only buying them time.

Merle had been clean. His truck filled with supplies. He hadn't cared about the encroaching night, whereas any sane person in this new world would head for the safety of camp. But Merle was a wild card, his every move unpredictable and unaccounted for.

In a quiet voice, Cal asks once more, "If you saw Merle again, what would you do?"

* * *

Merle had been Daryl's only ally - and even in those moments when he was the furthest thing from an ally, Merle had still been all he had. That nostalgia, that loyalty was what tethered him so tirelessly to the sinking ship, the thunderstorm that was his brother.

That unfaltering tie to his only brother, his only family, is what forces him down into the couch in the Greene's long abandoned living room. Daryl sits in quiet, staring down at a patch of fresh blood soaked into the cushions beside him, the fresh footprints interrupting the fine dust on the floor, the dead walker long crushed at the foot of the stairs.

Around him the house is silent and shadowed. The only light streaming in through the windows and open door.

His foot moves as he shifts, scraping over broken glass.

And he suddenly remembers. The grey light of morning reminds him of the fucked up world he came from - a life long past; of a small home in a smaller neighbourhood, with a mother long since burnt up in her bed and a father too drunk to care. The couch is as lumpy and worn as the one he grew up with, usually occupied by his old man if he wasn't out fucking his way to hell. The floor as dirty as it was after his mother died. The walker was new - but he could imagine it seamlessly into that old double-wide as easily as he blinked.

Daryl takes a ragged breath in, realizing with a wince he hasn't thought about that life since Atlanta.

He scrambles back from those memories as quickly as he can, the phantom of a cracking belt echoing in his ears.

Without really looking, Daryl knows Merle isn't in the house. The house is empty. He can see where they disturbed the grime, the dust. Hurried footsteps and blood. Someone had disturbed the kitchen, trailing a bloodied footprint through the house and back out the door. He knows it's Merle, despite Cal never specifying where she shot him.

He lifts himself from the couch and follows the steps outside.

The tracks aren't hard to find. His brother was only light footed on the best of days, and with a bleeding foot he had walked like a drumline across the frosted covered fields. Daryl follows the ribbon of foot prints, frowning as he moves further from the farmhouse, but closer to the feeling it had settled in his heart. He can practically taste the ash of his mother's cigarettes; smell the ripeness of his old man's beer-laced breath; feel the emotional and physical repercussions of Merle leaving him alone.

_Do you want to be alone?_

Daryl hesitates, jaw tight as the pounding in his ears suddenly stops. Maybe it was the sound of his heart cracking, breaking, shattering into pieces. Whatever it was, the drumming stops - and it leaves him feeling suddenly hollow.

_No._

He stops.

* * *

They sit in silence.

They stare at the map.

The group sits quietly, watching one another, Rick, Cal, the map. They are infected with fear, anxiety. Each one has seen and judged the space between their home and Woodbury.

Just over the next rise, Dale had said.

T-Dog, from where he laid on the couch, told him to fuck off.

"What if they aren't good people?" Lori's voice is wrangled into a false calm. There is a quiver at the end of her words, a soft warble of fear - the only indication of her anxiety.

"They probably aren't," Glenn mutters. Not if Merle's there, he doesn't say. He doesn't need to.

"We're just going to see what kind of threat they might be," Rick clarifies.

"And?" Dale asks, voice filled with that same unwavering faith they had come to know him by. "If they are a threat?"

Rick's jaw tightens. "Then we'll deal with it."

Dale opens his mouth to reply, but Rick cuts him off with a flashing glance. "We'll _deal_ with it."

Everyone goes quiet once more. They think of Randall and his group, of their apparent appetites and the whispered anecdote from Cal upon her arrival. A chill creeps through those familiar with Merle, of his own voracious appetites, his addictions, his cruelty. Their eyes find T-Dog and his crippled hand, or Cal and her vacant stare.

Her hand curled in her lap, fingers twitching as they reach, grasp for something, anything.

Rick's eyes sweep across the group gathered in the living room. "We're just going to check the perimeter, see if anything sticks out."

"I'll go," Glenn says, shrugging off Maggie's pointed glare. When he refuses to meet her eye, Maggie volunteers as well.

Cal is opening her mouth to offer when Rick shakes his head at her. "Not this time."

* * *

They leave shortly after, Glenn and Maggie and Rick all drifting away into the perpetual fog. Everyone stands under the eave of the farmhouse, staring out into the grey mist.

One by one they retreat to the house. One by one they leave, until only Cal stands on the porch staring down the drive. She huddles beneath a blanket, the only suitable replacement for her bloodied, ruined jacket.

Eventually her fingers and toes are too cold, and she returns to the closet and her pile of blankets, breathing into her hands to warm them.

For a long moment she stands in the door of the small space, her eyes glued to the small scattering of belongings Daryl had left behind. She sits awkwardly, tugging her pack into her lap and sorting through the few belongings she has left. She isn't certain why she organizes and reorganizes them, though a small voice whispers of her broken heart and leaving as she had once hoped to do.

Someone knocks on the frame of the closet startling her from her repacking, and she turns slowly, blinking owlishly up at Carol who smiles - a sad, sad smile - down at her.

In her hands she holds a steaming mug of something. Coffee. More coffee.

"Where did you shoot him?" Carol asks, her voice oh-so soft. She sits down, sliding along the door frame, folding her legs beneath her. She places the steaming coffee cup near Cal's foot.

Cal eyes it skeptically. She hasn't had a second cup of coffee since the old world ended. "In the foot."

Carol snorts. "Deserved worse."

Cal's lips twitch. "T-Dog thinks I should have shot him in the head."

Carol snorts again, a small smile tugging at her lips.

Cal sets back, slumping among the pillows and blankets. Her pack sits awkwardly between them.

Carol eyes the pack skeptically, lips thinning as she recalls Cal's penchant for running away. And that's what it is, truly: _running away_. Carol's jaw sets with resolve. "My husband died near the beginning," she says.

Cal glances up.

"Some days I still think he's going to come walking through the door." Carol tucks her hands into the folds of her coat. "And some days I think it would be _so - much - easier_ if he did..."

A pregnant pause. Carol shifts, rubbing at her fine, long fingered hands as she wrestles with her own discomfort. Cal watches from beneath the hood of her blanket, waiting.

Carol sighs, "Familiarity is comforting - even if that familiarity is misery."

Both women know Carol isn't only talking about the backpack.

* * *

It's nearly dark.

Cal leans against the arm of the couch nursing a mug of long-cold coffee. She listens to T-Dog reminisce about the world before; about his church and the folks he shuttled about; about playing in the woods out behind his house as a kid; about drinking sweet tea in the middle of a hot summer.

He's propped up with a pillow, uninjured arm tucked behind his head as he stares up at the water stained ceiling. On occasion they both glance at Lori where she paces near the front door. They can hear Carol and Dale talking in soft whispers from the kitchen, and Hershel and Carl have taken up the useless crows nest from the attic.

And they wait.

It's nearly dark.

Rick, Maggie, and Glenn haven't returned.

Daryl is somewhere out in the world, gone.

Cal takes a long gulp of her cold drink, long since immune to the taste of shitty coffee peppered with grinds and grit. Her hands shake, her heart putters away in her chest. She's two cups deep and her blood is on fire.

"There was this one old lady, real sweet. Had a set of lungs on her like I've never heard. Whenever she'd sing Amazing Grace, I swear -"

A soft thud from the upstairs forces the room into stillness. They wait, listening to the silence of the house. Their eyes find the front door, Lori paused near it, eyes wide.

The door opens with a sigh of cold, wintry air - and Daryl.

He stands just beyond the threshold, his eyes dark and hooded as he first meets Lori's wide eyed stare - and then looks beyond her, searching.

Cal is already up from the floor, the blanket draping from her elbows, her hands clasped tightly in its folds. Their eyes meet.

Daryl still doesn't cross the threshold.

"Did you find him?" Lori's voice is careful.

Daryl doesn't look away from Cal. He holds her electrified, over-caffeinated stare with his own exhausted gaze. "No," he says softly.

Lori shifts uncomfortably, and then tuts. "Well, get in here. You look like you could use some hot food. Cal could you -?"

Daryl hesitates, his eyes are still glued to Cal.

Cal only looks away when she moves to the hearth, the fire low where it nips at the edges of a steaming pot of soup. She spoons a helping into a bowl and turns to find Daryl still watching her from the doorway.

Cal motions with her chin for Daryl to follow as she sweeps past him towards the now empty kitchen - Dale and Carol having seemingly retreated from the small space. Without hearing him, she knows Daryl follows close behind.

She brushes the table top with the hem of her shirt before placing the soup down. A spoon is neatly tucked at its side.

When she turns it's to see him watching her carefully from the doorway, uncertainty written across his face and deep into his shadowed eyes.

They stare at one another for a long, quiet moment. Daryl worries the inside of his lip, shoulders hunched as he considers her. Cal leans against the kitchen counter, motioning for him to sit. She stares at him blankly when he doesn't.

"He walked away, bleeding, but he walked."

"I only shot him in the foot," Cal confesses.

"He can handle it," Daryl rasps.

Cal nods, knowing without a doubt that Merle could have taken a bullet to the heart and been fine. He was not a man to be easily defeated. A titan might have a chance against him.

But she doesn't really care about Merle.

There is only one man she cares about now.

"Would you have gone with him?" She whispers, her carefully constructed mask cracking to reveal her hurt. "Would you have left if you found him?"

_Familiarity is comforting - even if that familiarity is misery._

Before he might have snapped and bristled and growled, but now Daryl stays his quick, defensive anger. He considers the hurt in her eyes - and the hope that limns them. Still she refrains from asking him to choose, but she asks what his choice might have been.

Silence draws out between them, stretching on and on until Daryl breaks it with a soft spoken confession.

"I ain't good at being anything but how I am." He grimaces as he looks at his hands, at the scars on his knuckles, looping into the wrists of his jacket. She's seen some of them, and felt others between the thin layer of his shirt. "It was only ever Merle and me. Until it wasn't - and I had nobody. I've only ever been alone when it comes to my brother - even when he was around." Daryl's eyes are dark with unsaid truths. "Merle taught me what leavin' looks like."

Cal swallows thickly, realizing his choice.

"That's why I came back." His eyes lift, meeting hers across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the last chapter was ridiculously hard, but this one has it beat. IDK, I rewrote it several hundred times, thus the extreme delay, which I apologize for! I know how frustrating it is not to get updates regularly.
> 
> I'd love to hear if there were any particular moments from this chapter that stood out to you!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.


	28. Chapter 28

_I ain't my brother._

He pulls her knife from the pocket of his coat.

"I found this," he says.

She swallows thickly at the sight of it, the memory of Merle in her eyes, fear and anger so potent it hurts his teeth.

He moves forward, carefully and quietly, to place it on the counter next to her. He hesitates, fingers nearly brushing her arm, the heat of her a sharp contrast to the night he had come from.

"Thank you," she whispers, not quite meeting his eye.

He makes a sound in the back of his throat. His thumb ghosts the shape of her elbow.

"We might know where he's from, Daryl." She says it so evenly that he wonders if she wants him there at all.

Daryl's heart climbs into his throat at the thought.

"It's a town called Woodbury. He - he knew about it. I tried to say we were from there, but he knew. He  _knew._ "

Woodbury. He'd seen the name on Glenn's map. It was just under twenty miles away. Close enough to be a threat if her assumption was correct. The bloody footprints in the field had been hobbling in that direction. If that's where he was from, Merle would find his way back to his group. He was too hard to kill, too stubborn to die.

"We might not be safe here."

He doesn't say anything at that.

Cal's voice is even. "He won't stop looking for you. Probably ever." She folds her hands together, her knuckles white. "Rick is out there right now with Glenn and Maggie, checking to see if we'll be safe."

"Why you telling me this?" He grouses, glowering at everything except Cal. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. As much to hide their shaking from her as himself. "You want me to leave? Go out after 'em?"

"That's the last thing I want," she breathes.

His eyes meet hers. The distance between them is minute; he can feel the gentle warmth she exudes even in the cold belly of the house.

He darkens. "Then why the fu-"

"It has to be  _your_ choice, Daryl."

His choice.

He scoffs and turns away, trying to shrug off the sudden pounding of his heart. "Just over the next ridge," he mumbles.

"Yeah."

"If he's that close, you won't be safe. None of you."

"I'm more worried about you."

Daryl looks over his shoulder. "Don't be."

"That's what happens when you care about someone. You worry."

He watches her, the soft expression on her face, in her eyes. It's for him, he realizes, and that thought makes him squint uncomfortably at the fine grain of the panel flooring. He tries to rouse that familiar anger - the one that chases people away and never lets them in -, but he finds it slipping through his fingers with every thought, every memory of how Cal has  _always_ looked at him.

"I worry about what he'll do to you. I worry about what you'll do to yourself - for him."

"You don't have to-"

"I do," she says.

He wants to argue. He wants to tell her  _no, no, no._  
  
But she's right. He'd followed Merle down the drain more times than he could count. What would be one more? He came from a fucked up world made of gutters and beatings and burnt down double wides and he'd never wanted to leave that life because it was familiar and Merle was there, his only ally, his brother. It took the end of the world for him to get away from it - and the first opportunity he had to run back to his past, he did. __  


"He might be blood, but you don't owe him anything. Least of all everything you are. But that's your choice, Daryl. It'll only ever be your choice."

_Your brother scares the shit out of me._

_But you don't._

_But you don't._

But you don't.

The double wide would always be there - and the scars and the smell of burning cigarettes and the jingle of a belt. He would always be angry and impulsive, but  _he wasn't Merle._ And Cal - Cal saw that. She had treated him like he was worth a damn. He'd never really known that. Even Merle had only ever treated him like a proxy. He'd only ever treated him like he belonged back in that double wide, alone and miserable.

 _Do you want to be alone_ , she'd asked. He's still struggling with the idea that he deserves anything else. He isn't sure if it's even possible for someone like him.

But that's why he came back - for a chance.

To try at a different life.

"And if I don't wanna be alone?" He asks.

She's looking at him with  _that_ look. The one that chases away the anger and the doubt. It makes him think the world might be better now than it was.

"You don't have to be," she whispers to the small space between them.

He takes in a long, ragged breath. "Cal…"

"Come on," she tilts her chin towards the kitchen table, and the steaming bowl of soup. "Eat your soup, it'll warm you up."

* * *

Daryl eats, and she waits.

She leans against the counter, watching him from beneath her lashes. Her knife is heavy in her hands - heavy with a story she hasn't told to the end. She shoves it unceremoniously into the pocket of her coat.

She can still remember the feel of the blade sinking into Merle's shoulder. She can still recall the glide of it along his arm.

When Daryl finishes she goes to his side, her breath caught in her lungs, and words like lead sitting on her tongue.

"Come," she says, reaching out to touch his wrist. His fingers twitch at the contact, but he does not pull away.

_It was only ever Merle and me. Until it wasn't - and I had nobody._

Gently she says, "You've still got winter on you." _  
_

Finally he meets her gaze. There is worry in his eyes - something she knows he can't help.

_And if I don't wanna be alone?_

_You don't have to be._

"Come with me," she whispers, pulling him to his feet. _  
_

He goes with her.

She leads him from the room with careful steps, the house not betraying their retreat from the kitchen. Even the stairs leading them up, up, up do not creak or sigh. The door to their shared space, their small corner away from the rest of the world, opens to reveal the the only place either have felt at home in years.

Home.  _Home._ The pile of blankets, her own pack neatly tucked in the corner, Daryl's few items littered about. A small flashlight hangs from the ceiling by a piece of twine, and she drops Daryl's wrist long enough to twist it into brightness. It sputters once before flaring with a dim light.

There are shadows around Daryl's eyes, a grim set to his jaw. He doesn't look at her, but down at the blankets, their assorted items. Although his face is lined with worry, his tension visibly falls from his shoulders the longer they stand in the half light.

A deep quiet extends between them.

And it is deafening.

After a long moment he utters her name, and it falls from her lips like some half broken thing. There is an almost-apology there, in the way he looks at her - but she shakes her head.

"Just keeping an eye on you."

It is an explanation and promise both.

* * *

Cal wakes to the sound of a door sighing shut. Somewhere in the house comes a faint rise of voices, whispers edged like knives.

Daryl's breath is a hot trail down her neck, his hand splayed across her ribs. It's the first time she's woken to him against her back; it's the first time she's felt his hands on her.

Someone walks past their door, the floor creaking once. It's enough to rouse him, and she feels his fingers stiffen as he slips into waking. It is a long moment before his hand lifts away - its absence is a shock.

"Daryl," Cal says into the dark.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat.

She rolls over to face him. Even in the dark she can see the outline of his perpetually grim expression, made softer in this moment by the last vestiges of sleep.

"I want to tell you what happened with Merle," she says. Her story. The one with an untold ending. One he knows, but doesn't - not really. He knows she was beat to shit, but not the rest - it's never really come up. "I want to tell you everything."

He stills at that. She can practically feel him taste it, mull it over, and swallow it whole. Eventually he nods. "Alright."

It takes a moment to gather her thoughts, to still the rapid beating of her heart. In the quiet of the house, in the dark of their shared room, she begins.

"I saw him on a rooftop in Atlanta…"

It unfolds slowly. She regales him with how desolate Atlanta had been, what it had been like hearing someone roaring from the rooftops without a care in the world - and the creeping hopelessness upon realizing he had gone quiet. She recalls with startling clarity the first moments in finding Merle, how the smell of burned flesh had overpowered even the rank stench of the dead. She whispers through her decision to save Merle's life - and the subsequent days of begrudging camaraderie that had followed.

And through it all Daryl listens, silent.

"I found a gun," she admits. "And I hid it from him."

"You didn't know him," Daryl's voice is a familiar rumble. "Smart thing to do."

Cal smiles ruefully. "Maybe. Didn't matter. He knew I was hiding something. He found out. And then he wanted all the supplies, everything that mattered - and I couldn't stop him."

The fight falls from her lips - those moments she can remember.

She can still feel the pain of it all, albeit muted and hollow. A memory made softer by shock and adrenaline and the time since then and now. The phantom of Merle's hand on her face, cracking her head against the concrete was the only thing that persisted, even now. She could feel his thumb digging into her jaw - and the look in his eyes as he roared in her face.

And the silence that had followed after she came back. After she crawled out of unconsciousness only to realize their scuffle had invited whatever walkers might be near.

Merle's brutality had hounded her even after he left. That short, stumbling run for her life; that terrible moment where she had fallen and nearly given up.

Merle had done that.

His final cruelty.

To make her  _want_ to give up.

There must be something in her eyes, some far away look that worries him. Daryl reaches out and touches her gently on the wrist.

"Hey," he mumbles. His thumb coasts along her pulse. "Come'on back."

She blinks at him, refocusing on the here and now. Daryl is close - close as he's ever been, but somehow he feels closer. She takes him in; his thumb running along her pulse, his brows knitted in concern, something in his eyes that's been there for a while and still hasn't been truly named.

She knows what it is.

She feels the same way.

His thumb absently traces her pulse, rubbing into the palm of her hand, and back again. His fingers curl around her wrist, holding it against his chest. That simple touch sends her heart skittering. The distance between them so minute that his breath touches her lips.

"What happened after Merle?" Daryl asks.

Cal frowns. "Randall's group - and then… You."

You.

_You._

A word has never resembled Elysium, but in this moment it does. It falls from her lips like a prayer, like a whispered confession. In that moment it resembles three words that Daryl might never have heard in his life. In that moment it resembles three words she has not felt in ages.

It is the next part of her story - the only part that truly matters. She says everything and nothing with that single sentence, that single word.

And he understands. She can see it in the sudden intensity of his gaze, the stillness that takes him - and the sudden, stuttering breath he releases.

When he pulls her closer in an embrace, tucking her beneath his chin and just holding her, she releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"I don't want to be alone either," she whispers against his neck.

His hand traces down her spine, and his fingers curl against her.

* * *

She drifts away into dreaming. He doesn't.

He holds her until her breathing evens out - and he holds her long after.

Her shirt had risen up sometime in the night. He tugs at it, pulling it down over her side. He nearly winces when he brushes the bottom of scar that he knows stretches down from her ribs to the dip of her waist. He knows who gave it to her - and he knows she gave as good as she got.

He can feel the faint pucker of the scar beneath the thin fabric of her shirt. His fingers strum the length of it.

His brother did this.

His blood.

Merle.

He left Merle out there. A part of him is filled with regret, but another part - his heart, he realizes - rests easy. A door had opened before him, and it led somewhere familiar and miserable and alone.

_Do you want to be alone?_

He knows what would have happened if he caught up with Merle - the same shit that always happened. He would have followed his brother to the ends of the earth, and he'd have no one. Not even Merle. Especially not Merle. And what he would have left behind…

Cal had never made him feel alone - not once. Not even when she had let him go.

Daryl releases a shaky breath into her hair.

_I don't want to be alone either._

When he shuts his eyes, Daryl drifts into dreaming, and it is a quiet, peaceful place.

* * *

Cal wakes alone.

Her heart skips, but when she reaches across their nest of blankets to find his place is still warm and freshly tousled. She shuts her eyes; it wasn't a dream. He had come back.

She can hear voices downstairs. Heated conversation that makes her hold her breath and  _listen._

"...nowhere... "

"...but…. Walkers…"

"... can't expect… condition!"

A lull in the distant conversation forces her up, though she wraps herself in the warm blankets and toes on her boots. The door of their space creaks open to reveal the dim light of early morning. She edges down the stairs with quiet steps.

"What do we do?"

"What  _can_ we do?"

Cal freezes in the doorway to the living room. T-Dog is propped up, Glenn's map draped over his legs. Hershel and Dale sit on either side of him, brows knitted as they follow Glenn's tracing finger from where he squats beside them. Rick stands over the map, his back to her. Maggie hovers at the window, peering through the drawn curtains with a furrowed brow. The rest of the group speak in quiet voices from the kitchen.

Dale is the first to see her - he gestures her closer. She takes her space beside a grim-faced Rick.

When she meets his eye, he shakes his head.

 _Not good,_ his eyes say.

Oh.

"They're building a wall along these streets. Expanding. Every walker for a mile out is dead - anything beyond that is too stiff with the cold to care," Glenn explains, his jaw set with worry. "And they're pushing out. It looks like they're pushing out every chance they get. Some of the walkers along this boundary here were fresh kills. That's hardly more than a mile from here."

Cal stares down at the map, at the area Glenn has highlighted in yellow - and how close it sits to the faint dot that indicates their home.

She swallows.

"We can't stay here." It's Rick's voice that breaks the tension of the room. Everyone looks at him, at the grim set of his mouth. He frowns down at the map.

"Rick," Hershel says softly. "T-Dog and Lori…"

Rick holds up a hand to stay him. "Once T is back on his feet, we go. We can't stay here. Not with them so close."

Daryl appears out of nowhere, two cups of coffee in hand. He tucks one of the mugs, steaming and fresh, into Cal's hands with a murmured  _for you._ His fingers graze the back of hers in parting. The other he hands to Rick, accepting a tight-jawed nod of thanks.

Rick's fingers are white-knuckled on the coffee mug. "We got people we need to protect."

Hershel frowns at him. "And moving them is the best option?"

"If Merle's rollin' with them, yeah." Daryl grouses. "I know what kind of people Merle  _likes_ running with - and they usually ain't good people."

A silence follows his words. The sort that is filled with things unsaid - almost accusatory. Cal can see it in the way they avert their eyes, their lips curling and twisting and pinching white -  _you were going back to him, you left us, you were going back to him, are you a good person?_

She knows Daryl can feel it. He stiffens beside her.

She tucks herself closer to him, her shoulder against his.

"We'll leave when T is good," Rick repeats.

"I'm good to go now -" T-Dog moves to get up.

"T," Rick warns.

His voice is enough of warning. T-Dog stops, grimaces, and sinks back onto the couch with a pained sigh.

"What are we going to do, Rick?" Cal asks softly.

 _This isn't a democracy anymore,_ he'd said.

Everyone stares at the map, expressions pinched at how close,  _how close,_ the yellow highlighter edges to their home.

Rick's voice is firm, and they know it as truth. "We leave at the end of the week."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for the absolutely amazing feedback and encouragement I have received. Your support is enough to keep the bandwagon hoppin'. I apologize if I did not reply to anyone's comments, but I WILL this chapter. I promise. 
> 
> Secondly, I retract all previous statements. THIS was the hardest chapter to write. It has gone through several rewrites from start to finish (about five). This version is some wild amalgamation of all of its predecessors, and I'm still only somewhat pleased with it. I apologize if it isn't up to snuff, but at this point I just wanted to give you something. I knew what I wanted to give you, but I have no idea if I managed to convey it correctly.
> 
> Thirdly, I'm considering taking on a new fanfiction project. Something light and fluffy (or smutty?) to counteract this heavy af shit show of a fanfiction I've dedicated so many years to, and help revive my soul. If you have any prompts or suggestions, let me know! If you'd like to see Cal in a scene from a future season, that works too.


End file.
